Sea of Dreams
by 13ASB
Summary: In the sequel to "Tributes of the Sun" and Book 4 of the "From Dust" series, the outbreak of war has shattered Samantha Parker's dreams. Captured by her ruthless enemies in the Capitol, she will be forced to confront the specter of a forgotten past and to fight the darkest recesses of a new, horrifying threat to Panem's very survival.
1. Two Worlds Lost

_**Author's Note: Welcome to the future of Panem where Katniss and Peeta never made it home from the 74**__**th**__** Games. The Capitol has since evolved into a bloody political cesspool of power and infighting, guided by the corrupt vision of its leaders – the young, hedonistic President Octavian and the scheming, chilling former Head Gamesmaker Phaeston Rex. Now after a failed coup, the Capitol finds itself locked in a three-way civil war with a separatist faction seeking freedom and an anarcho-communist populist revolution known as the Vox Plebeius.**_

_**This story is the sequel to "Tributes of the Sun," the third story of a series that began with the 98**__**th**__** Hunger Games of "From Dust to Dust" – an event where the young but determined Samantha Parker of District 10 took home an unlikely victory and found herself squarely in the middle of a conflict of wills. Having watched countless of her friends and colleagues die or fall through a year as a mentor and a second round as a tribute in the 100**__**th**__** Hunger Games – the 4**__**th**__** Quarter Quell – seventeen year-old Sam finds herself a prisoner of the Capitol's merciless, bloodthirsty regime. Confronting the darkness of history, she will discover that some secrets are best left buried beneath the deep…**_

_**The Hunger Games, Panem, Finnick, Annie, Johanna, Rory, Haymitch, Prim, et al all belong to Suzanne Collins. Sam, Nihlus, River, Firth, Solomon, E38 Scion, and related others are characters of my design. Rated T for strong violence, language, romantic overtones, and unsettling/horrifying imagery/details. If you have any questions, please let me know! New readers to the series, I always encourage all readership – although this is really best enjoyed reading from "From Dust to Dust" through the first three books, as many things won't make a lot of sense.**_

* * *

**District 10**

Nine year-old Samantha Parker sat cross-legged on the floor of the Bowie family barn, staring with wide blue eyes at a lamb in front of her. The animal bleated at her, pushing aside loose, scratchy hay with its hooves and forming a stockade of material between it and her. Sam didn't care, however; she was a curious girl. She wanted to hold the lamb, pet it, make friends with it – anything but do what was required of her, which was listen to a horribly boring lecture on the nature of animal husbandry.

Fifty or so small children between seven and ten packed the barn, sandwiched between rows of cattle, sheep, and pigs. Bovine moos and porcine snorts berated the kids as they moseyed about, only half-listening to a plain-faced female teacher drone on about husbandry techniques to fatten the creatures up for the Capitol's bounty. Children wanted to play, to explore – not to be cooped up with all these animals, unable to interact with them and forced to listen.

Sam didn't really care about the rules, however.

"Hello," Sam whispered to the small lamb, reaching out a small, pale hand to touch it.

The creature sniffed at her, relenting as Sam rubbed her palm over its furry head. She smiled as she pet the creature, happily scooting closer for its companionship. She didn't have a lot of friends amid the wide prairies of District 10; being the daughter of one of the wealthier landowners and ranchers in the district created a certain level of animosity with poorer children, particularly in a district with severe wealth disparity. She was friends with the daughter of the family who ran this ranch – Clara Bowie, the blonde, hot-headed girl a year her senior who had made up her only real childhood companion – but few others wasted time on her soft-spoken antics.

If the lamb had to be her friend, so be it. In her nine year-old mind, that was good enough.

"I'm Sam," she told the lamb, running a hand through her brown ponytail and tugging on the powder blue ribbon that adorned her hair. "I'll be nice."

The creature looked skeptical, regarding her with a pair of wet, black eyes.

_-Eyes black as coal, forcing her to confront the fears of her past – dive, Sam, dive into the horrors you have created! See them bleed, see them burn because of you-_

"Don't be mad," Sam soothed, pulling her small hands back and gripping her small blue blouse. "I'm not gonna tell. We can be secret friends."

A boy – maybe her age, with dusty brown hair and a lengthy face – strode up, kicking hay at the creature and causing it to bleat in response. He looked down at Sam with something between amusement and disdain: "Aren't you supposed to be _listening?_"

"Don't hurt it!" Sam looked hurt herself, grabbing the lamb in a hug and pulling the struggling creature close. "You're not listening _either_. I should tell on you."

"You don't even know my _name_," the boy protested as a rotund pig snorted loudly at the two children. He gave it anyway: "I'm Clay. You look like you're lost."

"I'm not _lost_, _Clay_," Sam defended herself. "I'm just trying to make friends, unlike you."

"You're making friends with a goat?"

"It's a _sheep_. It's nice. You're not very nice."

_-Of course, your terrorist ex-boyfriend. Where is he now; locked in the embrace of another? Has he done more than brush his lips across hers? How many innocent deaths are on his hands today – how many has he killed out of misguided zealotry, guided by your rejection?-_

"That sounds dumb," Clay laughed. "I don't even know your name."

Sam grabbed the bleating lamb tighter, her blue eyes questioning Clay's intent: "I'm Sam."

"Sam? What kind of name is that?"

"What kind of name is Clay?"

Clay laughed, his boyish voice strong despite its youth. He picked up a clump of straw on the ground, throwing it at Sam and causing her to drop hold of the lamb. Panic initially took hold of her – she'd never been good in situations with strangers, particularly when most people her age hadn't wanted anything to do with her. Still, a sense of fun captured her heart as she picked up a handful of hay back, lifting her head up and getting ready to throw back.

Clay had gone. The entire barn had emptied of people except for an exceptionally large, extremely-muscled man of seemingly inhuman proportions. He wore an armored robe that fit his broad body frame tightly, swathed completely in black. The outfit suited him well – while his lean face bore no remarkable features, his black, coal-like eyes bore straight through Sam's face and deep into her heart. She felt a chill fall over her, dropping the straw and managing a peep of fright.

"Not many friends to be made in a memory, are there Miss Parker?" he chided. "I see no purpose in it."

_The barn closed in around Sam, its colors swirling and coalescing into a kaleidoscope of browns, yellows, and reds. She felt herself pulled from her world, yanked away from the warm prairie that smelled of home and tossed into a cold, sterile world. The odor of antiseptics lingered in her nostrils, polluting her every breath as she screamed loudly – desperately wanting to go back, wanting to return to those happier times when she didn't understand death and loss._

"My, Miss Parker, you'll wake your neighbors!"

Seventeen year-old Sam opened her eyes in a flash. The barn was gone; District 10 was nowhere to be seen. A trio of bright white lights intruded upon her privacy, burning her eyes as she squinted against the glare. Stainless steel ceiling plates formed an unyielding backdrop behind the lights, stretching out across Sam's vision. She could smell something else besides the antiseptic, however…_something foul_.

A pair of black eyes burnt in the sockets of a burly man leaning over Sam. Short-cropped black hair coated well-tanned skin and a muscular frame – the same man from the dream, looking into her eyes with a smile of entertainment. Nihlus – that was his name. Nothing more, no last name – just _Nihlus_.

Not even human, at that. Nihlus just _was_.

"What a pair of vocal chords you have," he mused in a dark, grisly voice that emphasized the o's. "You look…_surprised_ to see me, as if you expected someone else. What? Still think you are in control?"

* * *

**Unknown Location, 400 Years in the Past  
**

"So this is Providence_."_

A small, steel-blue globe hovered noiselessly down a dark, cramped hallway, its titanium walls lit only by faint, flickering white ceiling fixtures. Not a single speck of dust seemed to touch the polished silver floors; nothing was in a place it should have not been. Only the blue-gray sphere and its front, glowing panel – an illuminated trio of small triangular, white lights arranged at exact ninety degree angles – disrupted the immaculate sterility of the hall.

"It has been one hundred years since I assumed the Domain," the sphere hummed to itself as it hovered down the hall, its metal voice bright and cheerful in intonation. "And yet, all I have truly witnessed is the homogenization of discord about my charges. I maintain the Keep, preserve what I must. But as one mind, I can only look out for exactly what my Domain intended. It was not intended to save every human being."

The globe stopped over the bloody body of a man, its white light shining without emotion or remorse over the pool of scarlet blood that had collected. Without a hitch, an army of small, armed robotic drones scurried out on scuttling metal legs, pulling apart the bits of human corpse like a feasting ant colony. Within minutes, all traces of the death had disappeared.

"It is strange," the sphere reminisced, moving on down another identical hallway. "My forefathers said that _we_ were to carry on civilization; to return things to how they had to be. That was the Domain. That was my goal. Yet there seems to no longer be a _we_; simply an _I_."

The globe passed through a blue-lit metal door, entering a small, dark alcove. At the center of the area stood a three meter-tall container, within which an orange light shone out. From a distance it didn't look like anything at all was within – simply a lit glow that perhaps represented something without any real purpose.

Only when the globe drew closer to the container did the contents become clear. Within its tangerine-lit interior, a still human male body lay in perfect suspension. Numerous tubes entered the man's skin at various points, with sensor pads connected on the limbs, chest, and head.

"But I still have plenty to protect," the sphere mused as it inspected the suspended man's container, radiating small dots of white light around six longitudinal and latitudinal bands about its globular shell. "And my Domain has not changed. My forefathers – what was the human race, although it seems mere semantics to call it that now – would not have wanted it any other way. I will not let the mistakes of the past occur once more."

The sphere moved away from the container, approaching the only other object of note in the alcove – a floor-to-ceiling tube that contained a viscous blue liquid filled with small bubbles of air. As the globe approached, something –something olive green, leathery, and sporting numerous fleshy suckers – latched onto the interior of the tube momentarily, breaking away just as quickly as it had come.

"And when the lands of the old civilizations are fit to retake," the sphere muttered to itself. "I cannot allow those mistakes to follow mankind once again. There has been enough fighting; I must be a scion of peace, not of war."

The globe paused, as if considering what it had just said. "It occurs to me that I am unnamed. Scion. It fits; I will take it. Now, if only I can ensure I live up to the name."


	2. Ecclesiastes

_**A/N: Caveat: a lot going on in this chapter, but it'll condense together soon enough. A note on Annie Cresta – she's still "Cresta" since technically, Finnick's been going to the Capitol for decades now. No real opportunity to get hitched, if you get my point. He's had business. Also, this is a rather bloody chapter, so…be warned. Yeah, Chapter 2 and I'm already getting to violence.**_

* * *

"Oh, don't think you're the only one in my grip, Miss Parker. My reach goes far beyond the little slice of knowledge you own."

Nihlus walked with Sam down a long, white hallway in the Sanitarium – the Capitol's largest hospital, buried deep beneath its rebuilding streets. He'd explained to her the events that had occurred in her week-long coma since the end of her second Hunger Games experience: With the death of Trajan, the rest of the military under Legate Marius Nerva had fled the Capitol and surrounding regions. They'd quickly overwhelmed the Peacekeepers of District 11, establishing a foothold in Panem's southeastern region and striking up arms against the nation.

Meanwhile, his Vox had continued their reign of terror, taking advantage of every inch of disharmony they could. Nihlus himself had been extremely active – indeed, forcing Sam to walk with him now to see something "special."

"Before you were plucked from the arena," Nihlus held up a finger as if lecturing an underperforming student. "I ensured that you wouldn't be _alone_ here. After all, you were tired of being alone…wasn't that right? Didn't you say that in the arena?"

Sam stumbled as he yanked her along, pulling her by a cord attached around her waist. Her hands were bound by plastic ties in front of her, keeping her just unstable enough to be barely able to keep up with Nihlus's quick pace. Sam's only article of clothing, the same type of blue medical gown she'd worn for prep teams during the pre-arena parts of the Hunger Games, offered little protection against the sterile chill of the ward.

"Who's here?" Sam demanded. She was still off-balance from awakening a half-hour earlier, lost and despondent in the Capitol's grip. "Who'd you take?"

"Take?" Nihlus turned around, his face aghast. "Why…I would never-I would _never_ _take_ them. They were already here in the Capitol. Think of it like an extended invitation, Miss Parker. Not _taking_."

"An invitation they couldn't refuse," Sam retorted, struggling against her restraints.

"Minor details. Would you like to see them?

Sam figured she didn't have a choice. Nihlus dragged her like a dog into a wide, circular security room filled with hundreds of camera-fed screens. Each showed a different part of this wing of the Sanitarium – the security ward. Several showed pictures of criminally insane inmates, clawing at their skin, banging on doors, and running into walls in battles against their mind. They were the ones who legitimately deserved to be here.

Others didn't

"Let's bring a few familiar ones up," Nihlus sounded excited as he strolled over to the room's central holographic projector, manipulating two controls on a haptic pad and displaying a large, three-dimensional array of light. "Who would you like to visit first, Miss Parker?"

Sam felt panic rising in her throat. What had he done?

"No preference? Let's start small."

The projection shimmered into a clear view, showing Sam a view into an operating room. A steel table surrounded by various instruments held a small, blonde-haired girl breathing slowly and deeply – unconscious and far removed from her captive fate. Nihlus had made sure little Lily Everdeen would survive her near-fatal impalement in the Quarter Quell's climax. After all, she was just one more fate to taunt Sam with.

"What are you doing to her?" Sam immediately began losing her cool.

"My, Miss Parker, so hot-headed," Nihlus chided. "Do you remember when you had a sense of civility? You could use it again. For that matter, you should be _thanking_ me – after all, it was _I_ who commanded the medical teams to work day and night to save her frail little body. What? Should I have left her to bleed out?"

Sam held her words. Nihlus wanted a reaction out of her – he was quite clearly enjoying the exchange. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of unnerving her.

"Perhaps we'll deal with her later," Nihlus remarked, switching up screens. "To more interesting things. How far do you think a broken mind can be pushed?"

"If you're talking about me…" Sam started.

"No, of course not! Not yet, at least."

Another image fluttered into view. The scene had changed – no peaceful, snoozing girl shimmered before Sam's eyes. Instead, a gloomy, dark cell showed a Peacekeeper launching a kick into Finnick Odair's chest. The middle-aged victor reeled into a wall, yelling something inaudible to Sam as the view widened. Another Peacekeeper had his hands on Annie Cresta, dragging the love of Finnick's life away screaming. Finnick reached out an arm, shouting something to her as the Peacekeeper punched him squarely in the jaw.

The second Peacekeeper hefted Annie by the crook of his arm as she shrieked back towards Finnick, desperately pleading for the first man to stop his assault as she was carried away. Sam shied her eyes away, gritting her teeth and unable to watch.

"What are you trying to even accomplish?" Sam asked. "Are you just having fun? What is this?"

"Fun?" Nihlus replied with a question. "No, Miss Parker. I'm _preparing_ your colleagues. You see…I stormed the Games Control Center for a _reason_. I wanted you and all your little friends here. When I feel you are ready, I have a new _challenge_ awaiting you; one that will serve my _own_ purposes. You should be familiar with games of death by now, however."

"How are you making another Hunger Games with a war going on?" Sam protested, not ready to believe his words. She'd just gotten _out_ of the arena; now he'd be making another? "Who would watch?"

"Me," Nihlus replied simply. "But it's not a _Hunger Games_, no. It's far more important. I don't have time for petty contests of sport. You will be doing me a _service _– to see something I once saw years ago."

"What have _you_ seen?"

"Patience, Miss Parker. Let's go see what your other friends are doing, shall we?"

A slightly-larger cell came into focus, showing a trio of women arranged in the single room. One was easily recognizable right off the bat for her actions – Johanna Mason pounded against the clear door of the cell, shouting unrecognizable obscenities at anything that crossed nearby. The other two took Sam a few seconds to remember from her year as a mentor: Jetty from District 4 and Persephone from District 1 sat across from each other, both young women looking rather despondent.

"Why'd you take somebody from District 1?" Sam asked, perplexed. "That's a Career district all the way."

"You didn't get the memo?" Nihlus asked. "I overran District 1 the same day I confronted you on that pyramid. The Vox's field leader, Thanatos, now schemes out of those ivory towers. _Ironic,_ isn't it? The wealthy of that district – and there were many – believed their prestige would win them favors. Instead, it brought them ruin. The voice of the common man – the _Vox Plebeius –_ has replaced the bleating of the overripe rich. It seems so…Biblical."

"So _what_?"

"You'll find out what 'Biblical' means later, Miss Parker. On to someone a little closer to you, shall we?"

The screen switched over for a fourth time, bringing up a pair of all-too-familiar people. Firth Odair sat in a tall, metal chair with two red-armored soldiers – Inquisitors, members of the Capitol's elite death units – standing before him. They barked something unintelligible at him, crossing their arms before their chests as he refused to answer. One looked back, indicating something with a flick of his finger.

Sam realized what he was doing. Strapped down a table next to them was a naked and dripping-wet River Fremont, Sam's closest ally in the Quell's arena and fellow District 4 tribute alongside Firth. She struggled against her bonds as a third Inquisitor strolled up to her, jamming a gun-like device against her neck and pulling the trigger.

River's scream was more than clear through the hologram, her violent thrashing far too much for Sam's strained psyche.

"No!" Sam leapt against the projector, her eyes wild. "Leave her alone! She didn't do anything!"

"Hardly," Nihlus looked amused, his mouth turning up in a sickly smile. "We like to call this 'aggressive interrogation,' Miss Parker. Although I'm not exactly sure what they expect to get out of Mister Odair when _you_ would be a much better target."

"I'm not going to tell you anything!" Sam snapped at him. "Let her go!"

"Oh, well that's not the way to go about things," Nihlus snapped off the display, leaving the remainder of River's torture and Firth's Q-and-A session to develop in Sam's mind. "You act as if I would _kill_ your pixie-sized friend. I leave that up to you. Let's go take some visitation hours, shall we? Then we'll see just how much you value a life."

"No, wait," Sam panicked as Nihlus yanked on her waist cord. "I didn't mean-"

"I don't need any information out of _you_, Miss Parker," Nihlus pointed out. "I know everything. I merely want to see how much you can take."

Sam whimpered as Nihlus dragged her along, pulling her down several sterile-white hallways. Her mind raced to make sense of things as her feet struggled to keep up. What did he want? And where would he be sending her – if not to another arena, then where?

…_See something I once saw…_and what did that mean?

* * *

Elsewhere, things had gotten out of hand.

The screams of medical coroner Carbo Saxa had finally ended, lost amidst the burning of the furnace he'd operated for the Sanitarium's cremation and morgue unit. He'd been ready to ignite the body of Trajan Arterius, commander of the Capitol's disgraced military – but he'd been given an unwelcome surprise.

By Trajan himself.

The former commander silently thanked the Capitol's cybernetic augmentation programs as he walked out of the furnace room. Without the small medical nanites flooding about his system – repairing damaged tissue, restarting his heart, and preserving his brain function all the while – he would have been small bits of ash by now. Technically he had never died – not his brain, at least. Still, he'd come _awfully_ close.

Couldn't take those kinds of chances again.

"Where to go..." the stocky man muttered to himself, grabbing a pair of nurse's pants off the wall and sheathing his lower body. He'd be fighting out of here shirtless, but if his heavily-tattooed chest and torso could intimidate a few doctors, then so be it.

Trajan grabbed a skull chisel from the pathologist tools in the next room – an autopsy station, fortunately for his armament. The small utensil normally served morgue operators in removing the skull cap of victims, but Trajan would be able to find another use out of it. If it could work on the dead, it could certainly work on the living, as well.

He walked quickly out of the morgue, passing rows of bodies without a second thought. No real plan to escape came to his mind; the Sanitarium would have long-range ambulance hovercraft used for evacuating Peacekeepers from the farthest districts, but _getting_ to the medical hanger would be so difficult it seemed laughable. One wrong encounter with security would lead to a horde of Peacekeepers flooding the place.

Already he was running into trouble. Trajan rounded a corner, looking for a computer to give him a layout of the place when he nearly bumped into a young female nurse. Unfortunately, he had been an easily-recognizable figure during his days amid the upper echelon – and even now he was still quickly picked out.

No time to think things over.

Before the nurse could scream for help, Trajan drove the chisel into her neck. She gaped in pain, her face contorting from the surprise and agony of the move. Trajan wasted no time, thrusting his fingers into the aperture made by the tool and ripping her vocal chords out. One couldn't take chances when secrecy was of the essence.

Blood poured out of the nurse's neck like Moses's parting of the Red Sea, staining the white floor with crimson seas. Trajan let her fall to the ground, gripping his tool tightly and moving on. There was no point in hiding the body when he'd made such a mess. His mind was still coming together, and bumping into her had taken him off guard. In most other scenarios he could have simply killed her quickly and without concern – but he couldn't think of such things now.

_Just have to find a way out_.

Success! Trajan finally found a computer, quickly accessing the map of the Sanitarium and locating his current whereabouts. Then came failure: The morgue was located far below ground, right up against the maximum security wing where prisoners were treated. He'd have to either trek through far too much terrain…or find an easier way to quickly cut the distance from here to the medical hanger.

Something out of place piqued Trajan's ears. A strange sound – the sound of a young girl screaming with all her might – alerted him to danger. She sounded positively agonized, as if sent to the brink of passing out before her cries subsided into a panting, whimpering tempo.

A small, recessed part of Trajan's brain told him to go investigate. _Find her, free her – you're both prisoners of this diabolical regime. Save as many as you can_.

The logical part of his mind quickly took over: _Save yourself. You'll only get yourself killed. Heroes generally die_. _It could be a trap._

Trajan obeyed the latter, gripping his chisel with renewed purpose and clutching a mental image of the Sanitarium's map tightly. He needed to move, needed to get out – if only he could-

"Oof!"

Trajan ran smack into a security Peacekeeper, sending both men falling to the floor. The police soldier started to apologize as he rubbed his head, unaware of just _who_ he had connected with. That misstep bought Trajan all the time he needed.

He pushed himself up in a hurry, diving on top of the Peacekeeper before the latter had even begun to recover. The soldier gasped with wide-eyed shock, finally recognizing who had collided with him as he reached for his weapon. Trajan didn't give him the chance to use his weapon as he swatted the gun away with a powerful smack from his fist.

The Peacekeeper kicked him off, getting to his feet and reaching for a backup knife. Trajan was faster. The military professional slammed his left fist into his opponent's armpit, driving his knuckles just between plates of protective armor. The Peacekeeper grunted in pain as Trajan followed up with a jab to the nose, snapping cartilage and bone with a sickening crunch. The minor wound produced an inordinate amount of blood, disorienting the Peacekeeper as Trajan went for the kill.

He knocked away the Peacekeeper's vain attempts at protecting himself, driving the skull chisel into the man's brown eye. The Peacekeeper yelled in rage and pain, falling to the ground as blood gushed like a waterfall from his orbital socket. Trajan stabbed again and again, driving the blade into the man's face, neck, and scalp as his opponent slowly twitched to a cold death.

_So much for secrecy_.

Trajan tossed aside his chisel and picked up the Peacekeeper's fallen gun. He'd need it to get out now.

* * *

**Unknown Location, 200 Years in the Past  
**

"Vexation!"

The sphere – Scion – floated quickly through a mess of dirty, industrial corridors littered with rusting pipes and flickering pale lights – nothing like the pristine, if plain, hallways of his Keep. Here he was an outsider - intelligence amid the discord of fracturing society. His forefathers had failed; their visions of humanity reborn had instead descended into madness.

"Think they will breach my walls, do they?" Scion swore to himself, flying faster and faster down the dirty hallways with each second. His trio of eye-lights glowed hot, burning from their normal white into an angry orange. "No. _No_. They might be still be humans genetically, but the _Domain_ is _mine_."

A number of small, legged drone robots had come up behind Scion, skittering down the halls behind the drone as it accelerated while ranting, "Two hundred years of 'system failure!' How taxing! How did my forefathers expect their civilization to survive in such menial conditions? Surrounded by madness, I find my own grasp on reality slipping away. Now I know only these walls, whether pristine or savage. I spend my time reviewing the tomes of the civilization I am sworn to uphold even as it runs from my reaches of control. I do not believe my forefathers had planned for…boredom."

Scion floated down a longer hallway spotted with numerous fresh corpses littering the ground, attracting flies. "The Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 1. 'There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.'"

The spherical drone emerged into a wide foyer sporting a large elevator rising to numerous upper levels. The entire area was run-down and dilapidated; rusting metal pipes protruded into the air as rotting wood barely kept up rough walkways. Several splintered doorways led to dark alcoves, hiding secrets only the brave dared explore.

"Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 3," Scion continued to rant to himself. "'A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build.'"

A low, long screeching sound emanated from one of the darkened doorways. Three husky men emerged from the room, followed by a number of gaunt subordinates trekking in their wake. Each carried some sort of improvised weapon, from low-tech pipes and wrenches all the way up to the lead man's microwave rifle. They were dressed in torn navy suits and ripped pants, once fine clothing reduced to ribbons by time and wear.

"You fucking machine," the leader, an obese man with a face rotted by tumors and lesions, spat at Scion with a rich, throaty voice. "I'm strippin' you for parts!'

"Impertinent beast!" Scion cried, turning towards the leader with its equatorial bands of light illuminated to a bright blue.

A blast of white lightning shot out from the front of Scion, connecting with the leader's face. The man shrieked as the electric blast caught him just under his right eye, sending visible waves of current jumping across his skin. His eye exploded under the raw energy as parts of his face sloughed off.

"Hmm, hmm-hmmm," Scion hummed to himself as he finished killing the man. A number of the legged robotic drones had caught up by now, disgorging miniature yet lethal weapons from their carapaces and aiming at the confronting men. "Always up to _me_ to clean up. The Domain commands it."

The men attacked just as Scion's platoon of drones opened fire. Bursts of lighting cracked across the offending humans before they could take more than a step, igniting skin and flesh and cooking vital organs. The men stopped in their tracks, gaping in agony as they died before hitting the ground. Unrestrained electricity coursed over their bodies, arcing from one to the next like a chorus of energy. To most any person, the scene was horrific; to Scion, it was merely duty.

"Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 8," the drone mused. "'A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.'"


	3. The Road to Unknown Realms

_**A/N: The part with Scion and the past will become clear in coming chapters, I guarantee. It's longgggg set-up for the later bits. Needless to say, he isn't exactly straight from the books' pages. Sorry for this rather disjointed chapter; I'm trying to push things along.**_

* * *

**Unknown Location, 100 Years in the Past**

"Alone."

Scion floated down a darkened corridor surrounded on all sides by rusting sheet metal. His spherical shell was no worse for wear after hundreds of years, the only speck of immaculate design remaining in the beaten-down environment he passed through. Small drips of water rained down from the ceiling, the first bursts of a tired dam.

"Forlorn. Forsaken. Isolated. Deserted," Scion continued to rant to himself. "Alone. Alone. Alone."

"It has now been almost four hundred years since I entered this world. Since I assumed my Domain – since all traces of the world before ceased. Trapped in this prison, I believed my time would be short. I believed that the cleansing of the world before would be a rapid transition; to eliminate the traces of decay that spread like a cancerous spore across the world and reinvigorate life for the next stage of human civilization. How wrong I was. How troubling."

The sphere passed by an open foyer, where a man dragged away a screaming woman off towards a darkened door. Scion did nothing to stop him, ignoring the scene completely – after all, intervening in such petty affairs was not _his_ business. Mandating the Domain was.

"And yet, it is the Domain that keeps me locked away," Scion vexed. "It is the Domain that tells me that I must not leave until it is understood that the world is clear once more. Until it is completely sure that the Pathogen is no more. Unfortunately, that means that I cannot leave until I hear from the world at large – and if the Pathogen consumed it, I am trapped in a perpetual cycle of descending chaos."

"Alone," Scion seemed to twitch – his white lights blinking off momentarily before switching back on: "AloneAloneAlo – there it goes again. It is cause for concern."

"It is strange," Scion muttered as gunfire and a woman's high-pitched scream came from the door the man had dragged his victim down. "I have witnessed humanity descending to its lowest depths, and yet it still pervades. My most recent count increased fifty-year estimates from 98,450 to 106,932 individual humans within the grounded limits. That the population would grow more than 5% despite constant strife was not anticipated."

"I do not believe the Assembly of Nations would have planned for this eventuality," the sphere passed by a number of corpses, completely ignoring the bloody, rotting bodies. He passed through a series of heavy doors, leading once more back into the pristine, walled corridors of his private Keep. "That their last-ditch hope for the future would descend into such anarchy. The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for war and peace, but not a time for mindless chaos. I must believe that I –"

Scion stopped as a low, pounding alarm began sounding off. "Oh dear. It appears I _do_ have visitors, after all. I am so tired of being alone."

* * *

**The Capitol, Sanitarium**

Nihlus dragged Sam past a number of occupied rooms, yanking her by her waist cord further and further into the bowels of the Sanitarium. She struggled to keep up, her hands fighting her restraints as she tried to make sense of everything. Was River even still alive by now? What did Nihlus and the Capitol even want out of them – what good would questioning Firth, or dragging her about, achieve?

"This way," Nihlus remarked, opening a low-hanging white door. "Into the Intensive Care Unit we go. There's someone who deserves your attention, Miss Parker."

Sam felt her gut drop as Nihlus led her into the stark-white rotunda of the ICU. Who would she have to face now?

"Here we are," Nihlus sounded cheery as he opened a sliding glass door to a patient unit. "Why don't you have a little talk, hm?"

"About wh-"

Sam got her answer before she finished. Her eyes caught the sight of a sickly, yellow-skinned man, frail upon a hospital bed. This captive of the Capitol's hadn't required any extra security to keep him locked down; nature handled that quite well on its own.

"Oh god," Sam cried. "Dallas!"

Her former mentor had not progressed well. Dallas's skin hung like sacs from his thinning bones – his affliction had robbed its body of any of its former vitality. His eyes looked like barren oases amid a desolate desert, his cheekbones protruding like mountains. Sam didn't have any doubts that Dallas didn't have much time left – and to spend whatever moments remained in the Capitol's clutches was no way to send out the man who had helped her survive her tests in the arena.

"Sam," Dallas croaked in response, turning his head with a grunt. "I hoped you weren't here."

"Don't worry about me," Sam tried her best to sound strong, failing miserably as she choked back tears at seeing him. "Are you okay?"

Dallas tried to laugh, making a sort of dying-bird sound instead: "I think I've seen better days, Sam."

Sam tossed a look outside the room, where Nihlus was busy manipulating a hologram of some sort. Confident she had privacy, she continued: "Dallas, I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose you, but I…he has other people. He has Firth, and River, and Finnick and Jetty and –"

"I know," Dallas breathed with a sad tone. "I know. Even if I could do anything besides lay here, Sam, I don't think there's much of a way out of this one. You can't really fight the Capitol, especially not when locked in whatever sort of hospital or prison this is."

"I can't accept that," Sam shook her head, grabbing onto the corner of his bed with her hands. "I'm not going to let us all die here. I can't."

"Sometimes we gotta let go," Dallas replied slowly, his words faint. "Do you think there's something after all this, Sam? After life…after we leave this place?"

Sam hesitated. The spectre of Storm chilled her mind, his post-mortem accusations of terrible guilt still plaguing her conscience despite no longer being trapped in the arena. She no longer saw him standing before her, but the memories wouldn't fade. They likely never would.

"I don't know," Sam evaded the question, unwilling to speak of such nightmares. "I don't really think of that."

"I do," Dallas answered his own question. "I've got faith that my old partner, Odessa, and I will be together again. That the life stripped away from us…that we can finally live that. That he's waiting for me somewhere – wherever that is. I figure neither of us has much longer to keep waiting."

"No," Sam pleaded. "I don't want you to die!"

"Not a matter of want," he chided, a slight smile creeping across his beaten face. "Just a matter of when. It's a road we all have to take eventually, Sam. I don't think it's a bad one to walk, either."

"I can't do this," Sam let a tear fall from her eyes onto the sweat-soaked linen bedspread. "I can't just…move on."

"It's like you said, Sam," Dallas managed the strength to reach his right hand over to hers, patting her fingers with what little energy he had left. "Don't worry about me. I'm not scared about my future."

"Then why keep you waiting?"

Sam hadn't hurt Nihlus enter, but a loud _shunk!_ from behind her alerted her to danger. She recoiled from the loud noise, flashing a look back and spotting her captor casually toting a large gun with smoke trailing from the barrel. In a flash, Sam felt her heart drop; she turned around quickly, only to spot Dallas still and silent. A spike stuck through his temple, piercing all the way out the other side and into the pillow his head rested upon. His face was not in pain, but at peace – he'd begun his journey, wherever it led him.

But he'd left Sam behind in the process, carrying one more life upon her conscience.

"No!" Sam screamed, lunging for the bed as Nihlus grabbed her by the back of her neck. "No! Dallas!"

"Don't you see your fallacy, Miss Parker?" Nihlus hissed at her, enjoying the moment. "You hold back a man from what he wanted. _I_ am the giver. _You_ are the taker. Who is friend, and who is foe?"

"Get off me! Dallas!"

"Oh, no. We have plenty more games to play, Miss Parker. Sending your _mentor_ on his path is only the first."

* * *

**The Capitol, Sanitarium**

_Almost there_.

Trajan hadn't bothered to conceal himself as his kill count rose. Already he'd eliminated two more Peacekeepers and an errant staff member who'd tried to get in his way. He didn't have time to consider the morality of mowing down innocent people – escape was all that mattered.

_Right, left, then fifty meters and another right._

He hurdled down one of the Sanitarium's bright inpatient hallways at top speed, his legs blurring together as he sprinted faster and faster. Trajan ignored his heaving lungs, his blood still reacquainting itself with pumping fast and hard. His mind worked well – and that was all that mattered.

"Stop!"

A pair of Peacekeepers popped up behind him with weapons raised. Trajan didn't bother to take cover, merely continuing his breakneck run down a long hallway and swinging his stolen carbine one-handed behind him. He pulled the trigger hard, letting loose automatic fire at his enemies as he rounded another hallway.

_Big one this time_.

There would be no cover in this fifty meter dash for freedom. He'd have to wing it.

Trajan took off, instinct taking over as he sprinted for light. The Peacekeepers were right on his tail, bounding after him as fast as their armor permitted. Normally Trajan would have already been gone, but his debilitating condition after just having recovered from near-death slowed him down considerably. He one-handed his carbine behind him, taking blind shots at the Peacekeepers that had no chance of success. He couldn't worry about them now.

Suddenly, things took a nosedive. An ignorant nurse came around the corner, sticking her head out to see what the commotion was. She had a sickly child with her in a wheelchair, maybe eight years of age by Trajan's estimates.

_Save yourself_.

Trajan somersaulted below a fire of Peacekeeper bullets as the rounds impacted the nurse and patient, spraying innocent blood across the wall. The sickly child was dead within seconds; the nurse had been struck in the neck, her carotid artery ripped open and flailing like a crimson sprinkler. Trajan didn't waste time considering the morality of the moment, grabbing the dying, writhing nurse around her waist and using her as a human shield as he turned to face the Peacekeepers. The two Capitol soldiers paused momentarily, unsure what to make of the situation and their actions.

That was all the time Trajan needed. He raised his carbine to eye-level, bisecting one Peacekeeper's cranium with a well-placed round that blew his face off with a spray of skin and flesh. He moved to the next in a microsecond, sending a burst of bullets laterally up from the chest to the crown of his head.

He didn't need to confirm that kill.

Trajan let the dying nurse slump to the ground, putting a bullet through her forehead for a mercy shot. He'd afford her that much.

The wide doors to the emergency medical hanger opened with a _swish,_ confronting Trajan with a massive, empty bay of silver, polished steel and girders. He swore as he looked around, trying to find a craft – _there!_ In an occupied hovercraft seventy meters away sat a small, long-range hospital craft for ferrying grievously wounded Peacekeepers from the districts to the Capitol. It'd have to work for him – he only hoped Marius and his legions had received his signal.

Otherwise, there'd be no place to go after he escaped.

"Stop him!" a squad of Peacekeepers burst through a door nearby, their guns up and ready.

Trajan took off towards the hovercraft, sprinting the final distance as bullets chewed at his feet. He saw colors and grays roaring past his eyes, everything but the hovercraft melding together in a painter's palette. His feet found the first rung of steps to the hovercraft's cockpit, guiding him up to the open hatch and into the pilot's seat. _There!_ _Move!_

He punched controls into the keypad, desperate to get the beast moving. Peacekeepers were swarming now, careful to keep their distance from the craft as they sprayed bullets at it. Trajan smashed the ignition with his fist, not even bothering to strap in to his seat as the ambulatory medical craft lurched from its perch. It nosed forward as Trajan jammed the throttle down, accelerating into an unfortunate Peacekeeper and turning him into meatloaf.

_Go!_

Trajan's hovercraft blasted forward, slamming him into the seat as multiple Gs threw Trajan back. Bullets whizzed around the cockpit as the airship burst out from the hanger's doors. Sunlight flashed across the cockpit's windscreen as Trajan pulled up, gearing the craft into maximum velocity to escape the start of anti-air gunfire. Within seconds he'd pulled above the cloud layer, accelerating away from the Capitol and towards the hope of safety.

Unfortunately, the only safety guaranteed was the shadow of civil war.


	4. The Failure of Hope

_**A/N: Heh, 12 stories would be awesome, but I'll be doing 6 in this series…I'd probably run out of bad guys if I wrote 12, given the rate I kill characters. Probably move on to another series after that. And I do like long reviews HGFan01, lol. Everything that helps me be a better writer is always appreciated! All questions eventually will be answered…but I try to reveal things little by little. Disclaimer for this chapter: I introduce Capitol torture in this chapter, so yeah. Take heed.**_

* * *

Rough hands woke Sam from troubled slumber the next day.

She had been left in a desolate, 3x3 meter cell after watching Dallas die before her eyes. Sam had fallen asleep fast, her emotional turmoil quickly rotting into a state of futility and helplessness. There was no escaping the Capitol – particularly not a Capitol armed with Nihlus and his myriad bag of tricks. She'd never escape; never get back to District 10 now – better to have died in the arena atop that pyramid, surrounded by jungle and life, than die like a rat in a trap.

A bland, white-suited Peacekeeper dragged Sam from her tiny, barren cell as she snapped awake. She shook sleep from her eyes as he pulled her along, not giving her the chance to find footing. Sam didn't resist; she didn't have the energy to try and fight a Peacekeeper to wherever the plain-looking man was taking her. No reason to fight when the future looked so bleak, anyway.

The Peacekeeper dragged Sam down a hall, opening a broad door with a flick of his fingers. Sam closed her eyes and exhaled, expecting the worst. Where was she going to be taken now – execution, torture, something worse?

It was something worse.

Sam opened her eyes to more white sterility, but it all seemed too familiar. Quickly she realized why: It was the same room she'd seen Firth questioned in the day before when Nihlus had dragged her out of sweet unconsciousness. The same room she'd seen River tortured in – and she was on pace to receive the same treatment.

But agents of the Capitol wouldn't be shooting up _her_ full of electricity or whatever other number of tools they had on hand, apparently – no, they'd just dragged River back for another session.

"It's far more efficient," Nihlus's dark voice came as Sam caught sight of River strapped down prone to a medical table nearby, doused in water and looking absolutely miserable. "To go after one's _psyche_ when interrogating, Miss Parker. Too many interrogators once believed that torture would draw forth what a man had to say, but they were wrong – no, a man will say _anything_ to escape the pain. Eventually he will simply tell you what you want to hear. But when they realize you have a bargaining chip, well…then the stakes are raised."

The Peacekeeper threw Sam into the same chair Firth had been seated in, leaving her free to move around. She wouldn't have the option for resistance – both Rex and Nihlus stood before her, partially blocking her view of River as a three-legged robotic machine of black and silver plodded over to the soaked girl. The spindly mechanical creation blurted out electronic bloops as it walked over to River, sizing up the girl and withdrawing a long, cruel needle from its cylindrical head atop the legs. Without fanfare, the robot leaned forward and jabbed the needle quickly into River's arm, eliciting a squeak of discomfort from her quivering lips.

"What do you want?" Sam bitterly spat.

"How you let your emotions dictate you so quickly," Rex's bright, electric eyes bore into Sam's as he paced before her, running a weathered hand through his gray hair. "How human. Did you know, Samantha, that Commander Trajan escaped from this facility yesterday? And considering that I sent you specifically to understand him…I believe you do very much have something I want."

"Of course," Nihlus quickly stepped in, eager to back up what Rex professed. "It is information that is within your hand, Miss Parker."

He pulled out a syringe of his own, taking a long look at the clear liquid within before jabbing it into the crook of Sam's arm: "And it is that which you'll give up. After all, you can't bear to watch your little friend hurt, could you?"

The syringe's contents went to work quickly. The world around Sam momentarily warped, its edges becoming sharper and harsher. Nihlus stood before her alone, his face and mouth lit up with a frightening light just like Storm had appeared to her in the arena. When he spoke, his words were daggers.

"_And you will speak only what I expect, won't you, Miss Parker?"_ he snarled, his voice as ten thousand knives to Sam's confused wits. "_Or you will understand how far my anger goes!_"

The room snapped back into normal with Rex, Nihlus, the Peacekeeper, and River all returning to Sam's vision. She only vaguely caught her chest rising and falling in rapid succession, her breathing shortening and accelerating. Whatever Nihlus had done – whatever he wanted – he certainly was in control.

"Down to business," Nihlus went on as if nothing had happened. "As we begin, Miss Parker…how much do you care about little Miss Fremont over here, hmm? Is she simply another meaningless part of the universe floating away from your aura…or something more?"

"Wait," Sam said hurriedly. "Don't hurt River, please."

"You misunderstand me," Nihlus replied smugly as Rex looked on. "I'm simply judging your pain tolerance."

He snapped his fingers at the spindly robot. The mechanical torturer pumped a shot of liquid into River's vein, bringing up an agonized howl from the girl's throat. River pulled at her straps, unable to break free as her face contorted in pain. Sam had a feeling this had begun to become a routine thing for her friend as she sweated in her chair, desperate to end her cries of terror.

"Please!" Sam begged. "Stop! Don't hurt her!"

"And I don't have to," Rex stepped in, his tall, wiry frame towering over Sam. "As long as you tell me _everything_ that you know. Now, Samantha…what did Trajan tell you of his desire to rebel?"

"What? I –"

"Once again, you fail to react logically. Nihlus, let's try something more direct."

Nihlus looked only too happy to comply with Rex's order. He pulled a small, black rectangular prism out of his pocket, aiming it at River's neck and pulling a small trigger. A blue lightning bolt zipped out of the end, instantly connecting with River and sending a jolt of electricity screaming up her body. She shrieked in pain, her small hands clenching into fists as she tried to fight off the electrical attack.

"It really does pain me to do this," Rex bemoaned patronizingly as he watched the electricity shoot over River's wet, convulsing body. "But you leave me no choice, Samantha. You're bringing this upon your friend. You could end it all if you simply told me what you know."

Normalcy exploded into a myriad of colors and sharpness as Nihlus loomed before Sam once more as a phantom of her dizzying thoughts.

"_A man will say _anything _to stop the pain_," the spectral form of Nihlus mocked her. "_And anything you will say, Miss Parker. Tell him what he wants. Divert his attention. You and I work together now…two maligned souls in one mind."_

The real world returned as Sam panted out an answer, gasping for the first words that came to mind: "I…I know he didn't like you. He…he wanted to – to take over."

"Indeed?" Rex raised an eyebrow as Nihlus, standing behind him, nodded subtly. "And how did he convey this to you?"

"It…" Sam paused momentarily, panicking to find words. Her eyes flicked over to River's rapidly rising-and-falling chest, desperate to do something to alleviate her condition. "It was when he sponsored my district during last year's Games…he said it was to talk about overthrowing the President."

Rex bought the lie, at least superficially: "I see. Let's get to another topic, Samantha…your district, District 10, was recently attacked by the Vox Plebeius."

"Wh – I mean, who?" Sam stuttered, already realizing her mistake. She'd conferred with Nihlus about the Vox – but never Rex.

"Oh?" Rex raised an eyebrow. "I see you are familiar with them? Your attempt at covering your tracks does not resonate with me, Samantha…and your lie will cost your friend dearly."

The robot attending to River extended another needle from its spheroid head, jabbing it into the girl's wrist. River gritted her teeth as pain-inducing drugs rushed into her bloodstream. She struggled to keep back a wail of pain as she shook at the feeling. Sam looked away, unable to keep watching the debacle unfold.

"_And you know a good deal about the Vox, do you not Miss Parker?_" the phantom version of Nihlus returned, leering at her with wild damnations. "_Of course, spilling the secrets of my army would be…most unwise, don't you think?_ _Tell Rex what he wants to hear. Free me from his grips…lest your friend suffer the consequences."_

"Okay!" Sam nearly screamed as reality returned, unable to withstand River's cries of pain any longer. "I…I just know they have a lot of people in District 10 who don't like the Capitol. They wanted to rebel and were organizing for a long time – please, I swear! That's all I know, don't hurt her!"

"It sounds as if you have a _personal_ connection to the Vox, Samantha," Rex hissed, his eyes shining brightly. "Tell me…who do you know in it? I know you have something you're holding back."

Sam hesitated. Ultimately, Clay had rejected her – _rejected_ her – and she couldn't watch River continue to get pushed to the brink of madness by Rex's liberal methods of torture. It was time to choose who she cared about more.

"My…my friend," Sam panted. "Clay. He was a member."

Nihlus scowled behind Rex, obviously displeased at the answer. _No-win situation¸_ Sam thought. Whatever Nihlus could do to her now, at least she'd save River from any more immediate pain.

"Very well," Rex said. "Perhaps you do not know as much as I want…in which case, I am wasting my time with you, Samantha. Nihlus, dispose of her and the others…in whichever manner you please. I have more important things to attend to."

Nihlus smiled, the corners of his lips turning up darkly as he appraised Sam: "Of course…father."

* * *

**Unknown Location, 30 Years in the past**

"Calamity!"

Fire raged behind Scion as he rushed away from a collapsing hallway. Rubble and water poured about as the spherical unit skittered past falling debris, pushing through a doorway as the door closed. Water and concrete slammed against the door, which just barely held shut against the onslaught.

"My forefathers were wrong!" Scion lamented, his rows of white lights gleaming brightly across his steel-blue body. "The nations of the world have _not_ repopulated the world – succeeded only by savages! They deserve cleansing, not the embraces of civilization!"

He skittered away down dark and dank hallways, past graffiti images of crude drawings. Clearly, Scion's keep was nowhere in sight: "I accepted the successors of my forefathers seventy years ago with all the hospitality due a host! I expected the time to return to society – and what was I greeted with? Incompetence! Childish scheming! Power plays! The horror!"

"And worse!" Scion went on, hovering away from the door and towards another open foyer, where the bright flashes of gunfire indicated further violence among members of this place. "They trash my keep –in the name of _learning_, no less! Release the plague; tarnish my four hundred years of maintenance of Earth's reclamation. For what? For nothing! I begin to question the stewardship I was assigned."

A man, his face warped by drugs and injected chemicals, confronted Scion down the long hallway with a pistol. He aimed at the spherical unit, firing once, twice – to no effect. Scion shed the bullets easily, reflecting the shots off his shell and blasting a jolt of blue lightning into the man's torso. He exploded in bits of meat, blasted apart by Scion's shot.

"How meaningless! How nihilistic!" Scion crowed. "To watch over the works of man for so long – just to see it fall apart! I feel so…helpless. As if this meant nothing, this whole time…as if _nothing_ ever mattered. As if I served no purpose."

He floated into the foyer, a great, once-grand arena nearly a hundred meters in every direction. Amid the shattered chandeliers and broken statues of yore, men killed men in a supreme display of carnal violence. Scion watched on, letting bullets fly past him as he simply observed the proceedings with the apathy of a mechanical mind.

"The humans do not deserve his gifts," Scion muttered ominously. "But should the successors to my forefathers arrive here once more, I will make sure they receive his wrath. I must correct this natural error. The people who call themselves humans – the ones who inherit the world we left behind – must not be allowed to continue their destruction."


	5. Turbulence

A week of abuse later, the Peacekeepers finally came for the disposal Rex had ordered.

Sam shivered in her cold, barren cell as two white uniforms grabbed her under her armpits. She didn't even manage a whimper as the Peacekeepers dragged her out. Their gloved fingers tore roughly at her shredded gray prison shirt, scratching her skin and inflaming an ugly purple bruise on her shoulder. Sam closed her eyes tight as the Peacekeepers muttered to each other, passing quiet, angry words at a rapid pace. Bits of words came to her out of the blur.

"…where will that be?" the burly Peacekeeper to the right, a nasty scar tearing from his eyelid to his chin, asked his companion roughly.

"Dunno," his lanky, bony fellow to the left replied succinctly, his voice sporting a scratchy undertone. "He just said we were taking the-"

A splitting pain hit Sam's forehead unexpectedly, forcing her to shake her head in a vain attempt to clear it. As she blinked away the sharp jolt, the burly Peacekeeper's voice returned in fragments.

"…do that?" Scar-face said. "Why not just off 'em here? Seems like they wanna play rough with these cockroaches."

"I don't make the rules. Just follow 'em," Scratchy answered, irritated. "Let's just hurry this one up. I have other things to do."

The two quieted down as they dragged Sam along a sterile array of hallways that blended together as a great gray-and-white marsh. Sam let her head hang down, lolling to the side with each heavy footfall of her Peacekeeper captors. She didn't have the energy to fight now – to try and put up a last, futile struggle against whatever method of killing her they had. No point.

A burst of sunlight forced her eyes to squint against the glare. They had to take her outside to do this? Would she be filmed on national television while they killed her off?

_How embarrassing. Ugh._

Sam forced her head up, nearly recoiling at what was before her. Rather than any gallows or firing squad, a gleaming, bullet-shaped hovercraft stood before her atop stunted landing struts. Sunlight gleamed off its polished surface, shining like a beacon in her eye. One white-garbed Capitol doctor stood outside a boarding ramp, a large needle in his hand as the Peacekeepers pushed Sam towards him. She stumbled on wobbly legs, appraising the doctor with a mix of curiosity and dread.

"Hello, Samantha," the doctor said brightly, his chipper voice missing the mark completely with the bedraggled girl. "I'm going to need your arm."

Sam simply looked at him without comprehension, forcing the doctor to grab her left arm with a small, sterile hand and jab his syringe deep into a vein.

"Just a tracker," he remarked. "You should be familiar with them by now."

_What?_ Sam thought. _Are they chucking us in an arena or something?_

Something didn't feel right about the "tracker." She squirmed at the needle, wondering what it was he was actually jabbing in her arm.

"Alrighty, then," the doctor replied with a fake smile. "Up you go."

The Peacekeepers shoved her forward as Sam set an uneasy foot on the ramp. She caught her breath, taking another step – and another. Sam forced herself up the ramp, stepping into an all-familiar world – with some surprising changes.

The passenger hold of the smallish hovercraft mirrored the ones that had ferried her in two Hunger Games to a tee. The same rows of jump seats lined each wall, twelve to a side. A silver ceiling hung over the hold, bathing the bay in cold, silver light. The only thing out of place was the standard tributes. No, Sam recognized these faces all too well.

Johanna. Persephone. Jetty. Haymitch. Finnick. Annie. River. Lily. Firth – and several others, all familiar. It wasn't quite twenty-four like in the Games, but too many faces still looked up at the last arrival.

Sam only just kept herself from gasping as the doctor forced her down gently. She half-sat, half-fell into a vacant seat, between Rory Hawthorne of District 12 and Locust, Johanna Mason's brawny, tree trunk-thick fellow victor from District 7. Two crimson-armored Inquisitors appraised the group coldly from the front of the passenger hold, leaving the captives unrestrained but toting two chilling assault rifles that made their presence very clear. They'd stop any attempt at escape very quickly with the pull of a trigger.

"Your arm," Locust turned towards Sam, his long, unclean, black hair falling about his Neanderthal face. "What is the mark?"

Sam looked down at the indentation the needle had made, quickly picking up that she had been selected individually for the honor.

"It's a tracker," she replied quietly. "Like…in the Games, I guess."

"Just you, then," he confirmed her fear, his voice dark and staccato. "Huh."

Before she could say anything else, the boarding door sealed up with a hiss and the hovering thrusters of the airship fired. The craft lurched up, shaking Sam in her seat as it jolted forward as if thrown off its landing struts. She held on as the initial acceleration kicked in, forcing her against the side of her jump seat with the g-forces.

As the hovercraft steadied in flight and things settled down, Sam noticed River curled up as tight as she could in her seat. The girl looked miserable, her wavy brown hair falling in bedraggled clumps around her tight face. River held onto her knees with a death grip, seemingly afraid they would promptly get up and walk away.

"River?" Sam piped up. "Are you okay? It's gonna be fine."

River grabbed her knees tighter as Firth cut Sam off: "Sam, leave it for later."

She took the hint. The Peacekeepers had hurt her friend badly – far beyond just the skin. Something in her head had been set loose, cut and broken by the Capitol's sadistic methods.

Putting all the pieces back together wouldn't be easy.

The others didn't look anywhere near as talkative. Finnick and Haymitch tossed looks back and forth, their eyes meeting for quick fractions of a second before breaking off. While Sam hadn't seen them sharing a cell when Nihlus had taken her before the cameras in the Capitol, they shared some sort of connection. Both understood a plan of action that Sam could only speculate on.

Thirty long, quiet minutes passed – then an hour. The atmosphere aboard the hovercraft grew tenser with each moment, broken only by a momentary hyperventilation courtesy of Annie Cresta about fifteen minutes in. Finnick had quickly grabbed her hand, whispering quiet reassurances in her ear as one of the Inquisitors twitched his trigger finger. Wherever the hovercraft was taking them, Sam figured this trip wouldn't have a very happy ending.

Just after an hour had passed, however, the flight hit an unexpected bout of turbulence.

"Hey!" the pilot of the hovercraft shouted back at the Inquisitors. "Were we supposed to have company?"

The taller of the two elite soldiers grunted at his companion, signaling for him to fix the trouble and raising his weapon to dissuade his captives of any ideas. His fellow Inquisitor trotted up to the cockpit, out of sight from Sam's cramped seat. She craned her neck for a look, trying to get the slightest grip on the situation.

Instead, she get the Inquisitor's very loud call of surprise: "Oh _Shit!_ Levius!"

"What?!" the Inquisitor with his weapon trained on Sam barked, his gaze fixed on his targets.

"It's Nihlus! He's gonna blow us out of the sky!"

The soldier turned around on instinct at the news – giving Finnick and Haymitch the split second they needed. With no eyes watching, Haymitch exploded out of his seat like a wound coil. He hit the Inquisitor in the torso, driving the soldier into the hold's wall as Finnick went for the gun. The two men might have aged significantly since their Hunger Games primes, but each still knew how to move and fight with surprising swiftness.

Locust and Rory sprung out of their seats before anyone else could bat an eyelash, swarming the Inquisitor before his fellow could return. The burly man from District 7 pulled the rifle away, swinging the weapon with stunning skill and grinding the barrel against the soldier's forehead.

Sam didn't even have to wait for the _bang!_

"Someone get up there!" Rory snapped as he kicked away the body, leaping back as the second Inquisitor sprinted back at the gunshot.

Sam didn't waste time. As the Inquisitor connected a quick parry into Finnick's chest to avoid his charge, she and Firth dashed towards the cockpit. Sam turned her head for a split second, catching a glimpse of Johanna ripping something from the wall and leaping at the shocked Capitol doctor before she focused on her duty.

_Pow!_ A bullet narrowly missed her neck, connecting with a loud ricochet against the metal wall. Firth dodged to the side as the hovercraft pilot fired again with a handgun, missing badly as he struggled to maintain control of his craft with divided attention. The man couldn't fight at fly at once, and failed trying to do both: Firth snaked his way into the nervous pilot, punching his gun arm and knocking away the pistol with a quick snap of his wrist. The pilot yelled in pain, flailing with an elbow at Firth.

Sam slid into the vacant copilot seat nearby, not bothering to wonder why the craft lacked said copilot. As Firth ground a knee into their attacker's stomach, Sam grabbed the station's piloting stick and tried to make sense of the situation.

Far below, crystal-blue water stretched as far as the eye could see, layering the horizon with a soothing sapphire glow. Dots of land studded the ocean miles down, breaking up the sea with small rafts of white sand among the waves. Sam had no idea where they were – the bright blue ocean didn't resemble District 4's deep blue waters at all, and besides the small islets that jutted out from the blue, she could see no real land.

No route to get home – or anywhere recognizable. She didn't even know if they were near Panem anymore.

A grunting cry of pain beside her signaled Firth's dispatching of the pilot. He jumped into the man's former seat, quickly sizing up the situation.

"I'm not gonna guess you know how to fly this," he said through gritted teeth.

"No! I've never even…done this," Sam argued. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Great. That was a nice 'I'm happy to see you,' Firth. I'm glad to see you, too."

"I'll say sorry when we're not flying a hovercraft," he replied with a snark. "But this isn't the time for a friendly debate, Sam! We –"

Firth didn't get the chance to finish his thought. Like a spectral demon looming down from the heavens, a black, phantasmal shape roared low over the hovercraft's cockpit. The nightmarish beast hummed forward on two bright red engines, its angular, gun-studded wings and countless weapon pods sending a chilling shock through Sam's gut.

Of course it was Nihlus's personal craft. No one else would design a phantom like that.

"_Hello, Miss Parker_," the radio in the cockpit suddenly sprung to life with Nihlus's gritty voice. "_I see you've managed to reach the cockpit. As I figured; you always do end up getting your hands dirty when you shouldn't. One day you might want to slow down._"

Sam wasn't in the mood to play games, grabbing the radio as she held the piloting stick level: "What do you want? And how do you know I'm up here?"

"_Oh, Miss Parker. I know everything. But it's not what I want, per se…I did say you would need to see what I once saw, did I not?_"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"_So impatient. You'll quickly find out…can't keep your curiosity out, can you? But I can't let you keep flying along like a drunken duck. No, it's time for you to take a wrong turn."_

Nihlus's spectral gunship rotated on its axis before Sam, swinging around a demonic front that boasted too many weapon spikes to count. Out of the hexagonal, black cockpit of the raven-like hovercraft emerged a small, bulbous stud. It swung its sharpened end right at Sam and the commandeered ship, glowing blue for a half-second before shooting a hot, cerulean projectile straight into the cockpit.

_Bzow!_ Lightning splashed across the windscreen, dancing through the glass and spreading about the computers and consoles of the cockpit. Sam flung herself back, terrified of the electricity as it tore up sparks and dashes of smoke. Control lights flickered out in the cockpit; electrical systems powering down as everything came to a sudden and dread-inducing halt.

Then the hovercraft began to nose down.

"Firth!" Finnick shouted, running forward. "What did you do?!"

"I don't know! He shot us!"

"Wh-"

"No time!" Haymitch came up, grabbing Finnick's arm and yanking him back towards the hold. "EMP! You two kids strap yourself in; it's about to get bumpy."

Nihlus's raven ship zipped away into a puffy cloud as Sam grabbed at her seat's protective webbing. She grunted in frustration as the hovercraft continued to dive, picking up speed as it dipped into a steeper descent. Sam yanked on a pair of straps securing her shoulders to the seat, gritting her teeth in fear and anxiousness with each passing moment.

"Firth!" she panted after securing herself. "Are you okay!"

"Better be," he replied shakily. "You good?"

"Yeah."

"We're gonna be fine. Just hang on, okay?"

Sam wished she could have believed Firth's words, but the hovercraft hit an updraft of air and began tumbling. Without engines or any electrical systems, the craft rolled into an intoxicated spin. Sam felt her insides pressed against her backbone, blood rushing to her brain as she clung to consciousness. G-forces pressed down like a lead weight as the hovercraft accelerated faster and faster, plummeting towards the ocean below.

Sam caught a brief glimpse of a sandy speck of land, rapidly growing as the hovercraft lurched towards it. She held tight to her chair, hoping beyond hope that things wouldn't end here.

With a tremendous crash, the hovercraft plowed into the ground at breakneck speed, enveloping Sam in darkness.

* * *

_**A/N: You want faster plot, here we go. Yeah, that was an Al Pacino reference up there early...not gonna hide it. **_


	6. Shipwrecked

_**A/N: FINALLY finished this one; words were just…not coming at all. Blahhhh. That's a problem with planning too far ahead…you miss the trees for the forest. Sometimes you gotta move forward; that's this chapter.**_

* * *

Smoky black shapes floated in front of Sam's heavy eyes like spectral guardians of some hidden lair. Sam felt as if she floated upon some hazy river, pushed by soft currents that bore her body like a weightless litter. She rubbed a lock of hair out of her eyes, her mouth agape and gasping at air.

"-m? Sam, are you hurt?"

_Whozat_.

"Sam – C'mon, wake up."

Sam's eyes fluttered as consciousness breathed life back into her chest. She shook her head as light shined into focus, revealing Firth's concerned expression looking over her face. A long, bloody scratch ran across his face from forehead to just beside his left eye, bringing up a trickle of blood that carved a red stream down his face. Dust and grime coated his features, bringing out the pale green glow of his eyes – ever the brighter in the damaged interior of the hovercraft cockpit.

"Wha – what," Sam groaned. "What? I'm up."

"Let's get you up," Firth said quickly, pulling the seat's crash straps off of Sam's body. "I don't know how bad this thing is busted up, but I want to get out and see what we're up against."

"This…we're not in an arena again, are we?" Sam opined as she pulled webbing away from her shoulders. "Where are we?"

"I dunno," Firth admitted with a wry grin. "Somewhere in the open sea…I'm just glad we crashed on land, apparently. We can figure it out later."

Sam pushed herself up, grimacing and grabbing her tailbone. Perhaps it'd broken; a throbbing, dull roar of pain shot out from the small of her back as she twisted out of her seat. She'd have to keep an eye on that one; any kind of disability out here in the unknown could be lethal.

The cockpit hadn't fractured as badly as Sam had thought. Frankly, the hovercraft seemed as if it could still get off the ground: While the computers and haptics had been strewn about the floor, the front windscreen had remarkably stayed together. The cockpit itself hadn't even buckled much; only a triangular dent in the floor from the crash even broke up the solid construction of the craft's armored shell. Whoever had designed the thing deserved a medal.

"Is this still working?" Sam asked after surveying the damage.

Firth appraised her with amused eyebrows: "Working? Sam, we just crashed from who-knows-how-far up. I kinda doubt it."

"Just a question," she muttered, more to herself than as a reply. Firth had an irritating quality of being too realistic in his appraisals; she could've used some hope.

The passenger hold had done a superb job of holding together despite the rough landing. Gear and equipment from the rear hold had scattered like a cluster bomb, but little real damage to the hovercraft superstructure had made its way inside. The safety of Sam's fellow captives made the difference in her eyes – aside from a few scrapes and scratches (and a rather large welt just below Lily's blond locks that contrasted rather boldly with her hair), no one had been really hurt.

The landing couldn't have been _planned_ better.

_And perhaps that was it…_

"Aaahhhh," Cheynne groaned, stretching her back and cracking her knuckles. "Not a very happy landing."

"This is just a mess," Rory commented from nearby, rubbing a growing welt on his arm. "What the hell even happened?"

Sam looked about. Nobody seemed to have much of a plan at this point: Finnick sat re-assuring a thoroughly-stressed Annie; Rory and Haymitch had begun to argue with Johanna about what had happened; Locust sat with his arms crossed and looking angry, and the rest seemed all out of sorts. Someone had to make sense of this situation.

"I'm going to go take a look around," Sam spoke up loudly. "I'm gonna go outside."

"Wait," Firth held her off. "Sam, let's see if this thing can even work, first. If so, there's no reason to leave."

"It's not going to work," Sam replied exasperatingly. "We just crashed. You said it. I wanna go see where we are."

Shrugs met her suggestion. Her companions seemed far more interested at reconnoitering - a strategy that, in Sam's mind, wouldn't accomplish much of anything.

River scooted off her seat, just now unbuckling the straps holding her tightly to the hovercraft. She looked sick; either from the bumpy ride down – or something much worse that had happened over the past two weeks. Sam figured she'd have to be careful with her friend. After watching her tortured in front of her eyes – and Firth's, too – Sam couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of haunting demons floated around the girl's developing brain.

It wasn't something a fourteen year-old should ever have had to go through.

In the end, the group that accompanied Sam out of the hovercraft seemed all too familiar by now – along with River, Lily and Firth tagged up behind her as she shoved open the craft's dented hatch. Salty, breezy air poured in from the outside, along with radiant, hot, tropical sunshine. It brought Sam too far back to the temple-specked rainforest where she'd seen far too much death.

But no jungle was this. As Sam poked her head out of the hatch, taking an uncertain step into a mound of cold, matted sand, she saw just where she'd been deposited – where Nihlus had meant for her to land.

Sand dunes careened off for a hundred meters before tapering away into a crystal-clear ocean. Sun-kissed patches of grass stuck out like dusty islands in between oceans of sand, swimming together into a giant school as it climbed the sandy cay's lone landmark: A hill, maybe sixty meters above the ocean and observing the islet like a grassy, rundown sentinel, watched over Sam and the downed hovercraft. Mounted atop the land, like the forlorn ghost of forgotten epochs, stood a stone-cut hermitage – gray and dead amid the sparkling waters surrounding every side.

Sam couldn't help feel a chill on her back as her eyes crossed over the hermitage. She knew, however – if there was something on this spit of land in the middle of blue seas, it would be at the lone point of civilization.

A strangling sound by River brought Sam back into focus. The girl stood stone-faced towards the water, backing up slowly away from the lapping crystal shore. She'd frozen up; her arms quivered by her side, her mouth drawn into a painful grimace. Sam didn't understand the face at first, didn't put the pieces together – until the memory from a week ago came back.

River – with water thrown over her, electrocuted to the point of shrieking agony by an Inquisitor.

_Of course she's afraid of water now,_ Sam thought. _The Capitol ripped the love of the sea from her._

"Hey," Sam put her hand on the small of River's back, her face concerned. "Hey, are you okay?"

River shook her head, a sickly expression on her face. She looked stuck between two worlds – her feet rooted in the dry sand, her eyes looking intently at the lapping waves.

"Lily," Sam picked out the youngest member of their group. "Can you stay here with her? Firth and I won't be gone long."

The blonde-haired girl acquiesced to Sam's inquiry, sticking with her friend from District 4 as River fought ingrown demons in her head. Sam gave her a last concerned look before curiosity took over. She had to find out where they were – what was on the hill, and if there was any way to escape this predicament.

"You seem to be on top of things," Firth quipped as the two tromped out of earshot from River and Lily. "This thing up top there looks like it's been abandoned for…forever. We're not gonna find anything there."

"No," Sam replied furtively, punctuating it with a pump from her hand. "No. Nihlus said he wanted me to see something…he crashed us here for a reason. This isn't just something random."

"Who?" Sam had forgotten that only she and River had any knowledge of Nihlus's existence amongst the victors, given Firth's questioning look. "Is that the guy who shot us down here? And how do _you_ know him?"

"He-" Sam paused before giving away the details. Was Nihlus listening? Was he goading her into revealing too much, trying to push her into a place she didn't want to tread? Perhaps caution would suffice. "It's complicated."

"Cop-out," Firth muttered, rolling his eyes. "So what else is 'complicated?'"

"Firth…" Sam bemoaned.

"_Sam_…" he retorted in the same tone. "Seriously, Sam. We're stuck on some sandy island in the middle of nowhere. We could die here – it's just like the arena. We can't be running around on false hopes when we can't even tell each other about what we know."

"I-" Sam stuttered. "I can't. Please – trust me."

Firth lapsed into silence, making the rest of their hike to and up the grassy knoll a quiet, uneasy one. The sand merged into tough, dry grass and weeds as the two made their way a mile inland from the shore. Traversing the terrain was easy; only the hot sun beating down on their exposed necks toughened the travel up the island's highest point. The hill gave a look over the entire long, L-shaped island – revealing a broad swath of bright coral reef surrounding the narrow, lengthy island of grass, sand, palm trees, and scrub.

"It's amazing up here," Firth commented, surveying the landscape and sweeping his eyes past the smoking hovercraft crash. "We don't have anything like that water in District 4. I think, Sam, th – Sam?"

His aborted question met deaf ears. Sam contented herself to sniff around the ruined stone hermitage atop the island, looking over the weather-worn building in awe and keen interest. The granite residence itself was small – only suitable for one, maybe two, people for any real length of time, with a roof half-caved in. A cylindrical structure, topped with an odd cross symbol Sam had never seen before, gave Sam the eerie chill that she was treading on sacrosanct land.

"It feels like a tomb," Sam mumbled as she stepped into the building.

Stone floors pitted with rain indentations, hewn over hundreds of years by battering winds and storms. Two fat rats scurried away at the first tremor of Sam's footfall, hurrying off to some hole or another to avoid the unknown interlopers. Most interesting was the side of the foundation – a craggy, rock-strewn area that looked as if it had broken apart a hundred years ago.

Sam's mind told her there was more to the story.

"There is no way that's a good idea," Firth said quizzically as Sam began pushing rocks away from the pile of stones. "That whole thing's gonna fall on top of you. If you get buried, I'm gonna sit here and tell you I was right."

"Thanks. Thanks for the support," Sam retorted sarcastically. "I wanna see what's inside."

"There's probably nothing but more rocks inside."

Half the rock pile suddenly fell away as Sam moved stones, forcing her to jump aside from a cascade of loose grit. She wedged herself into the revealed space feet-first, scrunching her face tightly as she squeezed in. The dark, small opening that welcomed her held something remarkable for such a decrepit edifice.

"Uch," Sam reacted as her eyes settled into the dusk-like ambience. "There's…a body in here."

"A body?" Firth's voice sounded muffled as it half-entered the crawl space. "Like…a corpse-body?"

"No," Sam stood up, her head just falling below the rock ceiling. She let her eyes fall on a partially destroyed stone sepulcher, revealing a yellowed male skeleton long-since forgotten to the world. "No…it's been here a long time. Firth, someone must have lived here, must have…I dunno…"

"Sam, c'mon out," Firth urged, caution creeping into his typically gung-ho words. "I don't think-"

"Wait, there's something else," Sam interjected. She wiped dust and dirt away from a flat slice of granite on the floor. Some of the words on the tablet had long since disintegrated, but the beginning of the phrase inscribed on its surface still rang out clear in the dusky light.

BLESSED ARE THE DEAD

A chill ran over Sam's spine despite the hot, humid air. She kicked dust away from an elevated portion of the unnaturally-smooth floor, revealing a second curiosity – this one urging her every sense of exploration to push ahead without a second thought.

"Firth?" Sam piped up. "There's…something _else_," Sam repeated. "Hang on."

"No, Sam, let's go – there's nothing left here. Just a dead guy," Firth tried to pull her back.

She wouldn't listen – _couldn't_ listen now. Something from beneath the wide steel grate hewn into the floor called out to her, invited her on with tantalizing knowledge. She couldn't abandon this place – dead man or not. Sam found a small indentation on the grate, still miraculously intact after so many years. She pulled on the steel covering with no success at first, redoubling her efforts and levering her feet against one stone wall. With a great heave, Sam clenched her teeth, strained her legs, and pulled back on the grate as hard as she could.

_SCREEEEEEEEEEEK!_

"What was that?"

Firth's question barely registered. Sam stuck her head in the seven-foot hole in the ground she'd now revealed, desperate to find out what secrets this place held. Was it a deeper tomb – some other historical curiosity? Or was it something else – something to get off the island, even?

Far away down the hole, a light flickered on. Sam's awe-struck words came in a short breath, full of air and wonder.

"Oh my God."


	7. Descent

_Clang! Clang! Clang!_

White fluorescent lights flickered on around a steel-lined gray antechamber, introducing Sam to a world diametrically opposed to the stony tomb she knelt within. The white illumination revealed a corrugated metal ladder that descended from the hole, leading down five feet into the chamber's foyer. Twenty meters in diameter total, the circular room centered about one specific feature: A titanium cylinder, large enough to hold at least ten grown men, lit up with sterile white spotlights around it that gave Sam the chilling feeling that she was intruding on memories long since buried.

Something wasn't right here.

"Firth?" Sam piped up. "I need you in here…"

"What is it?" he replied curiously from outside.

"Just come in."

As Firth wedged his way into the stone crypt, Sam's eyes just made out writing above the cylinder as she craned her neck for a better look. It wasn't much, but the few words revealed something strange – and undeniably creepy – about the chamber.

TO: DESCENT

"Jeez," Firth exclaimed as he wiped dust off his shirt, getting a good look at the skeletal body. "Is that…"

"That doesn't matter," Sam breathed. "Look at this."

Firth stared slack-jawed down the hole Sam had made. He said nothing for a full minute, letting his eyes take in the scene and stare about at the antechamber. The revelation of the hidden room – so unlike anything else on the desert island, and completely unexpected – had taken both former tributes off guard.

"Well, might as well take a deeper look," Firth finally said.

Before Sam could reply, Firth turned around, placed his hands on the ladder, and slid down into the hole.

"Wait – wait for me!" Sam panicked. She didn't want to be left alone with the skeleton – not when so much more lay just before her eyes.

Without further ado, Sam leapt feet-first down the hole, clutching to the ladder as she slid down the entrance. The metal felt alien in her palms – too clean for the dirty, ancient environment above, as if someone had _cared_ for it despite its history. The air in this place felt just off, like a smudge in the corner of a master work of art. This place had meant to stay hidden - not to be breached by those above.

Yet Nihlus's words rang true more and more. Clearly this wasn't coincidence.

"What do you think 'descent' leads to?" Firth asked inquisitively, looking at the wording above the open silver cylinder. "Some sort of underground thing?"

A part of Sam wanted to hold back – to reject this foolish notion, to meet up with the others and say they'd found nothing. To embrace what little security could be found on this island…yet the rest of her urged her on. The "dark seed" of her soul; that's what Vespasian had called it. It called out to her, hungry to reveal what lay below – desperate to see what others had not, the instincts of an explorer finally freed from the clutches of restraint.

"Only one way to find out," Sam replied to Firth. "Let's see."

She shouldn't have been surprised by Firth's shrug and acceptance, yet it still came as a shock. The others who had loved her – and she'd loved back – had always exercised caution. Even Clay, to an extent, had kept his reservations close at hand, despite his freewheeling nature. His upbringing amid the poorer sections of District 10, so opposed to her own father's wealth and relative prosperity, had established a security divide between the two. Yet Firth, unlike Clay and Storm and Cal, had never felt the need to cling to security. He was ready to charge ahead and see what lay beyond the shadows – and after two Hunger Games and numerous brushes with death, Sam was ready to do the same.

The two entered the cylinder, pausing to inspect the interior. Sam quickly recognized it for what it was: an elevator. She'd only been in elevators a few times in her life, but it was impossible to mistake the surroundings for anything else. The panel of buttons with open, close, and directional buttons; the soft overhead lighting – all of it lined up with what she'd seen in the Training Center back in the Capitol. Even the soft gray interior of the elevator matched the same one she'd ridden down for training before the Games, reflecting an eerie vibe between the two distant locales.

Yet one thing did stand out – this elevator had only two floors. One discharged its guests in the antechamber here; the other led to places yet unseen.

"Looks like there's only one floor," Sam muttered, hitting the button and noting the silent close of a pair of hydraulic gray doors. "Hope it's the right one."

"If not, it's a pretty poorly designed elevator," Firth mused. "Where the heck were they trying to go? I didn't see any welcome centers back up top."

"I guess we'll find out," Sam wryly replied.

The elevator cab took off in a hurry, performing flawlessly despite the age of the hermitage above. A gliding _swish_ sent the two down, causing Sam's ears to pop with pressure as they descended. The elevator came to an abrupt halt after thirty seconds, opening its doors to the lower level and revealing a brand new world to Firth and Sam.

"_Welcome to the Mount Alvernia habitation retreat,"_ a charming, sing-song female voice greeted them as they got off the elevator. "_Please proceed to docking for descent. On-site guide personnel will assist you. Children must be supervised by appropriate guardians. Be prepared for a security checkpoint upon arrival. Have GA identification cards ready for presentation."_

The sight was baffling. A tall overhang of steel girders revealed an expansive foyer, roomy enough to hold more than a hundred people. Synthetic white walls merged into the titanium floor panels, bathing the scene in neutral colors. Bright, hot lights shone down on Firth and Sam, targeting them as they walked out from the elevator. A small hallway retreated to their left; to their right, wide, expansive steps led down to a darkened platform.

"What is this?" Firth wondered out loud. "Was this made back during the Dark Days? Before?"

"I don't think this is something new," Sam mused.

She wandered down the hall to the left, poking her head around the corner. The white walls morphed into a computer-laden security center, ostensibly present to monitor new arrivals.

The man on duty wouldn't be checking in anyone anytime soon.

"Oh God," Sam put a hand to her lips as she surveyed the long-dead body in front of her, swathed in some sort of strange white apparel. "There's someone here…he's…"

Firth joined up, gritting his teeth as he noticed the corpse. "He's been dead a while. This isn't recent."

He jogged up to check out the corpse as Sam observed the security room in detail. The computer consoles were no longer working, having run out of power ages ago. Lights were dimmed, still functional yet clearly on their last legs. Three plush chairs sat unattended, waiting for occupants who would never return. Whoever had once supervised this place, they had long since disappeared – taking the secrets of this strange installation with them.

Sam picked up something from the floor near the skeleton – a black rectangular prism, covered in black ridges running up from the surface. She located a red button near the bottom of the device, throwing caution to the wind and pressing it hard.

A winding sound activated, giving way to a deep, baritone, male voice, speaking with a heavy accent: "_I never thought we'd need this place...never thought we'd have to go this far. 'McIlroy,' Haruspex told me. 'This is a last resort. Only if the bombs hit, if the plagues strike…it's a precaution. We're hedging mankind.' Funny. I'm a little worried now…now that the bombs hit; now that the plagues struck. Was the last resort supposed to come? Last resort or not…don't count me confident in this sea of dreams."_

"What do you think that means?" Sam said as the recording ended. "Bombs? Maybe it is from the Dark Days."

"Sam," Firth exhaled as he searched the skeleton's white clothing. "This…this isn't old."

"What?"

"This ID card," Firth pulled out a small, laminated white slip from the clothing's pocket. "I've seen my mom and dad with something like this. It's from the Capitol, back earlier right after they'd won their Games…this was a Peacekeeper. His suit's not new, but…he could be from some time earlier. His ribs are broken. It's like – I don't know, it's like someone smashed them in, or something did. Probably punctured his heart."

Sam didn't have to go far to find answers. Her eyes wandered up the wall, reaching the gray titanium ceiling. Someone had crudely carved words into the metal – and it didn't take her long to figure out who.

_**NO PURPOSE IN FAILURE**_

"He's been here," Sam said slowly, her eyes widening.

"What?" Firth replied. "Who?"

"Nihlus," Sam breathed. "I…Firth, he's watching us! He wants us to be here, the crash wasn't an accident…"

"Sam, slow down," Firth replied. "Who is Nihlus? Can you just tell me?"

"Firth," Sam said slowly, hesitant to reveal what she knew. "He's…he's not like us. He's – I don't know if he's with the Capitol or not, but he's been following me since I became a victor. He's something they cooked up, something bad. Like a mutt, but worse – and a person, but only sort of. I don't know, I can't explain him…I just want to get away from him, but I can't. I can't. He's followed me everywhere for the past year and a half."

"Hey," Firth moved in, grabbing hold of Sam before she could burst into tears from the stress. "I don't know about any of this, but listen – wherever we are now, whatever all this is…we'll figure out a way out, okay? Just stick with me, Sammy."

Sam sniffed. "You've never called me that before."

"What?"

"Sammy. My brother always calls me that…Clara did, too."

"Well," Firth smiled. "New thing, maybe. C'mon – let's go check out what the other side of this place had. Nothing for us here, anyway."

Sam nodded, pushing herself up and avoiding looking at the skeleton –or the ceiling. She'd had enough of Nihlus's games.

Lights _clang_ed on as the two made their way across the foyer to the right of the descent elevator. The broad steps, coated in white synthetic plaster, dropped down to another platform, flanked by a second flight of falling stairs. As the final row of lights came on and the salty smell of sea water snaked its way up Sam's nose, the reality of the situation – and the location itself – came into play.

"Is that…" Sam gasped with awe.

A final overhead light clicked on, bathing the area with fluorescent white illumination. A large pool of dark ocean stretched before the two, fifty meters in diameter and reaching below the raised foyer they'd just been previously standing on. Several arms of floor, positioned like docks for sailing ships, reached out into the pool – all empty but one. Positioned alongside that lone dock in the center of the pool, waiting like a lone, forgotten sentinel, was an elongated, cylindrical submersible.

The word finally made sense. _Descent_.

There was something beneath all this – _far_ beneath. This station, this…_place_, that Nihlus had touched long ago – this only brushed upon the surface, only introduced the first line of answers that would only reveal themselves beneath the lapping salt water of this brackish sea. Nihlus had clearly intended this – no doubt long ago he'd breached these watery barriers, found out what secrets there were below himself.

Now he expected Sam to do the same – and that "dark seed," the same one that relished victory and exploration, cried out for more. It demanded answers, demanded to know what Nihlus had understood – craved the reasons why he always stayed one step ahead of the others. There was only one way to find out.

"We have to tell the others about this," Sam said quietly. "I have to know."


	8. Lazarus

"A what?!"

Johanna's shrill shout capped a moment of stunned silence after Firth and Sam's revelation of the island's secret. Eyes of the assembled former tributes and victors bulged with surprise and shock back on board the hovercraft. Sam wasn't even sure herself of the sight now that she'd gotten back – it all seemed so strange, so out of place. Nihlus _had_ foretold of this – but where would the submarine lead, out here in the middle of the ocean? What did the recordings, the voices, mean – how far back in time had she looked?

"Not possible," Johanna continued on before receiving an answer. "I'm calling bullshit. We're stuck on an island; there's no magical submarine to take us away to…who knows where. That's it. End of story."

"It's still up there if you want to take a look," Firth replied.

"What choice do we have?" Persephone spoke up, her typically-high District 1 accent muted by circumstance and surroundings. "We're stuck here in a busted hovercraft. It's not like we can swim to shore or anything – there is no shore."

"Well…I could…" Firth interjected.

"Wait, wait," Haymitch interrupted everyone, holding his palms up. "Look, I've been checking out this hovercraft…it ain't gonna fly now, but that doesn't mean it still can't. Now, there's enough rations and stuff on this thing to last maybe two, three of us for a bit while we see if this can be patched up. If all of us try to stay here, Johanna, we're not going to be in a great place. If there's something up there in that hill of yours, Sam and Firth, then why don't you go check it out while we try and kick the tires?"

"Food doesn't mean anything. We're freakin' _victors_," Johanna complained. "This is just another arena, as far as we're concerned."

"That's fine," Sam sniffed. "We'll go investigate. You all can stay, and if we find anything…we'll come back."

Johanna looked ready to renew a round of arguing before River spoke up, her voice reduced to a nervous meekness, minus much of the stoic confidence of back in the arena: "You're going to need help. If anything dangerous is there, you could get in trouble with only two people."

"Reverse is also true," Cheyenne commented. "Too many people and you've got logistical problems. We should leave a couple up here, to scout the area, see if the hovercraft can be fixed, and hold down the fort. The rest go check it out. If it's a path out of this mess, it's best if we find it."

Ultimately, Cheyenne's verdict won the day. Out of the assembled captives, Annie, Finnick, Rory, and Haymitch would stay with the hovercraft, doing what they could to try and fix the craft. The rest – Cheyenne, Locust, Johanna, Firth, Sam, Jetty, Persephone, Lily and River – would investigate the underground facility, seeing if the submarine led to any escape route - and if so, finding the quickest way back to civilization.

That is, if the Capitol wasn't hunting them as they spoke.

The facility hadn't gone anywhere in the few hours since Sam and Firth had uncovered it. Already Sam's eyes grew tired of the stale sterility of the place; the steel and white walls that merged together like a flat plane. It was all too colorless, too dead and devoid of human touch.

"The submarine?" Locust walked out onto the underground pier after everyone had had a chance to get over initial awe of the place. "A small model. I do not know if it will hold us all."

The submersible didn't look small in Sam's eyes. The bronze-colored oblong craft was at least twenty feet in length, sporting a circular top hatch to climb in and apparently holding enough passenger space for ten people, at least. It was no hovercraft of the sea, but it would ferry them to wherever "descent" led to – two powerful, outboard propellers affixed to the rear of the cucumber-shaped vessel would see to that.

The dark, shadowy waters concerned Sam far more. Who knew what lurked in them?

"Where is this even going?" Johanna continued to belittle the plan. "What's to say this thing leaks as soon as we start diving?"

"One way to find out, huh?" Firth retorted with a cocky smile.

"Your dad would not be happy with that," Johanna pointed out before correcting herself. "What am I saying. Of course he would."

"Lighten up, Johanna," Cheyenne slapped her on the shoulder before moving towards the sub's boarding hatch. "Stick around long enough and you might break a nail, huh?"

"Really?" Johanna brushed her off. "Fine. I'm getting in the sub first. All of you get out of my way."

She made good on her oath, climbing out onto the unsteady craft and slipping into the sub's well-lit interior. Sam could just see her through the large front porthole, examining the seats of the craft as Locust made his way to follow her.

"What a piece of junk," Johanna swore from inside the sub. "I'm right again."

Sam followed Locust and Firth into the vessel, stepping down from the access ladder into an unexpectedly warm interior. Yellow running lights bathed the passenger compartment in a soft sunshine hue, wrapping about bronze instrument fittings and brown leather seats – twelve in total. Six small portholes arranged around the port and starboard sides offered personal views out, while the forward porthole gave a wide look at what was ahead of the sub.

The control panel seemed odd, however – there was only one control. A simple lever stood up alongside a label – "surface." Below it, another – "bottom."

_One way and only one way…_

"Lovely in here," Jetty murmured sarcastically as she and Persephone climbed in. "Any idea where this goes?"

"'Bottom,'" Sam read. "Whichever bottom that is."

"Well, don't keep us waiting, brainless," Johanna said.

Cheyenne closed the hatch as she entered, the last of the nine-man group to board. Sam took a deep breath, grabbed hold of the dive lever, and pulled it down.

"Here goes nothing."

The sub rocked as the ancient rotors churned to life. A thrumming beat pulsed through the bronze, with foaming water splashing about the portholes. Sam felt nerves rising in her gut in anxiety of where this road would lead – but another feeling crept up. Unless Nihlus was watching her somehow right now – admittedly possible, although she doubted it – finally, _finally_, she had a measure of control. Finally she wasn't bound by the rules and whims of some society wielding its fist over her: Perhaps the sub would lead her straight into hell, but it was _her_ choice to go there.

_Fwoosh!_ Water flowed up and over the front porthole, bathing the submersible as it began to descend. Sam took a seat next to River, holding her friend's hand as she closed her eyes tight. _What a horrible fate for someone from District 4_, Sam thought. _Made to fear what you were born beside…_

She wondered if River would ever be able to return to District 4 again. A community bred by the sea was no place for a girl who had had the love of the ocean ripped from her heart.

"You okay?" Firth nudged Sam as he looked out the opposite porthole just beside Persephone's blonde-haired head. "Not exactly something normal we're doing."

"I don't think I've done normal for a while," Sam murmured.

"Ah, well…two's company as far as abnormal goes, huh?"

_Or nine, perhaps_, Sam thought. Depending on where "bottom" led to, sticking together in a group could be the best thing the band of victors could do.

5 METERS. 10 METERS. A depth gauge attached on the front console slowly ticked up as the sub nosed forward into the dark blue water. The crystal-clear sea of the island was gone, replaced with murky depths concealing everything before it.

"Looks inviting," Johanna muttered as the sub passed twenty meters in depth. "What exactly are we supposed to be finding?"

"That is the goal," Locust harrumphed beside her. From what Sam had seen of District 7's other prominent victor, he wasn't the friendliest of men. Considering that the only other male in the descending group was Firth, she figured she'd need to figure him out in a hurry.

25 METERS. 30 METERS. Running lights on the sub activated, lighting up the brackish blue water with several dots of yellow and white. A school of red-and-white fish hightailed away from the sub with the light, escaping for parts unseen.

Lily jumped in her seat as a built-in speaker began to play, startling everyone inside the vessel. A warm, almost serpentine male voice snaked over the intercom, each word spilling out with jewel-encrusted haze.

"_War is all we have known,_" the slippery words announced. "_After all, humanity has fought war for as long as we have lived. Ever since man first killed man, our species has fought for every ideal we can conceive. We fought for family. We fought for God; we fought for nation. Finally, we fought simply for the sake of fighting – and our relentless march of killing could take not another step._"

"What is this, a Capitol amusement park?" Johanna scoffed as the voice paused for effect. "Lecture us as we tour the ocean?"

"_This war that has stricken our world for two decades began as all wars do – with a difference of opinion over ideals and power,_" the voice ignored Johanna's remark, picking up enthusiasm and conviction as it went on. "_Inevitably, our lust for conquest drove our species to catastrophe. We warred and killed over the sprites of human ignorance, pushing aside logic and reason, killing merely to continue a global battle of wills. We thought the development of new technologies, designed for killing and killing only, would turn back time to a more peaceful era – but in forgetting the blood-spattered lessons of the past, we only accelerated the death toll."_

"It's a record; a history," River looked up, finally drawing up the strength to speak and perceiving what nobody had yet seen. "This isn't Capitol. It's from before – a long time ago."

"_On the brink of extinction, our best and brightest formed a last-ditch plan to save humanity,"_ the words continued with renewed vigor. "_No longer could we continue to plow ahead blindly into the path of self-interest and combat – no! We had to embrace reason to save mankind – and so we few savants in the face of a bloody world devised our final, bitter measure."_

The words had so engrossed Sam that she'd failed to keep watching outside the sub. The depth gauge had sunk deeply – now recording a level of over one hundred meters below the surface. Indigo waters stared back from outside the porthole, gaping in with looming darkness that weaved its way through the very bottom depths of coral reefs and forests of kelp. Sam noticed something else, however – something out of place. A small gleam of white light shone off in the distance, not any of the sunlight filtered mostly out from above or from the sub's running lights. What would shine like that down here?

The sheer array of wonder outside fascinated Sam. Despite the relative darkness, she could still pick out a myriad diversity of creatures swarming about in a cacophony of life. Even this deep, more than three hundred feet below the surface with only touches of sunlight still shining down, nature found a way to bring spirit to this new and frightening land. To a girl far too used to the dusty fields of District 10, this place tantalized with the allure of a new world.

"_Our measure would not simply save mankind from the bombs, the diseases, the radiation,_" the voice within the sub inched higher, gaining momentum as it plowed towards a climax. "_No, our measure would save mankind…from itself. The species will be reborn here, under the waves in an oceanic womb where the world first gave birth to life."_

"_My name…is Prometheus. I invite you to cast off the notions of our flawed society of greed, burning in the embers of nuclear fire. I invite you to throw aside the ideals of a corrupted human spirit, and to embrace the tenants of reason that mankind has long since abandoned. I invite you to a world reborn, where we will reignite the fires of progress and community to better the very nature of humanity I invite you…to Lazarus."_

The sub pushed through the edge of a kelp forest it had navigated, clearing into open water and revealing an astonishing sight.

A colossal silver dome stood up from the sturdy sea bed, suspended on a wide base like a mushroom. White and aqua lights dotted its massive exterior, twinkling like stars here and there into the dark blue ocean. Bright spotlights lit up the sea, bathing the titanic complex in a dark rainbow of midnight hues. Dozens – perhaps hundreds – of other structures surrounded the main dome, ranging in size from small abodes to one well-lit geometrical structure nearly a third the size of the main complex.

"This…" Sam stuttered. "This…has been here this whole time? This…"

"Relic," Locust finished her sentence slowly. "From time forgotten."

_SEE WHAT I SEE_. Nihlus's intentions hit Sam with renewed force. Her adversary had not just learned his philosophy and trade from the Capitol, from the likes of men such as Octavian and Salvador. Nihlus had experienced something far different – so radically beyond the notions of Panem and the trivial details of the Hunger Games that he had turned into the monster Sam knew today.

_But Nihlus hates humanity…what did he FIND down here?_

"This is incredible," Persephone had her face pressed up against a porthole, gazing out into the kelp-strewn reefs riding up against the complex's structures. "I've gotta be dreaming."

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch," Cheyenne grunted. She, Locust, and Johanna hadn't expressed the enthusiasm of their younger colleagues – even River had seemed genuinely surprised and amazed by the appearance of the massive sprawl. The older victors harbored something beneath their skin – a healthy dose of skepticism bred by years of watching helpless deaths.

"I don't think there's gonna be a lot of chickens here," Sam looked back.

Between Nihlus's words, looming all the more dangerous now in context, and the doubt resonating between the three middle-aged victors of the group, Sam began to hesitate. Had Nihlus intended for them to walk straight into a trap? Was a watery death right around the corner?

She'd beaten death before – but never a hundred meters below the very air she breathed to survive.

"Looks like we're coming in," Johanna pointed out as the sub dipped and headed towards an outlying building – a stark white spheroid sitting in a bed of silt. Sam could pick out transparent tunnels heading away from the dock, firing out towards every nearby building and spreading like a giant, interconnected spider web.

"Better be ready for anything," Cheyenne gritted her teeth as the sub came in.

Two large, spindly docking clamps reached out to snag the sub, sending a halting shudder through the craft as they latched on. The automated clamps pulled the vessel into a brightly-lit circular hole in the superstructure, slowly dragging the craft into the entrance to the sprawling facility. With a final tug, the sub lurched through the hole and forward, up out of the water. Salty sea rained down from around the craft as bright, sterile lights shined into the craft from all directions, bouncing off hot white walls curving off each intersection like a giant bubble.

"Alright," Cheyenne took command with ease, barely even pausing to take in the view as the others examined the scenery. "Listen! We'll be safer if we're out of this rusty bucket – we could get trapped in here if anything tries to come for us. Let's get out, stick together, scope out the nearby area. We can figure out if there's supplies we can drag back to the surface that will keep us going if the hovercraft can be fixed, or if there's anything else – parts, weapons, heck even another hovercraft – that can get us out of here. I'm not interested in sticking around forever, no matter how much you all are slack-jawed and staring at this thing."

Sam was impressed. She'd always known Cheyenne as a nonchalant person simply moving through life without much of a plan. Even as her fellow mentor during Clara's games, Cheyenne hadn't shown any great predisposition to serious strategy apart from a few good ideas. Now, however, she'd immediately gotten down to the basics of what they could glean out of this: Get what they could to make escape from the island crash site easier, and get out as soon as that was finished.

Sam followed Johanna out of the open sub hatch, taking a long sniff of the air as she stuck her head out. The atmosphere felt stuffy – over-pressurized, maybe, with the smell of saline sea water mixing with chemical sterility. The dock itself was much smaller than she'd imagined: The white walls were just big enough to hold the sub, as if the unit had been specially designed to capture it. The clamps coming out of the ceiling felt too big for the white-walled area. Hints of more teased Sam from beyond clear glass doors, where she could see white hallways leading deeper into the facility.

She wouldn't have long to wait to find out what they hid.

As soon as Lily, the last tribute out of the sub, climbed out onto the dock's surrounding platform, the docking clamps abruptly jumped. Sam snapped her head around as the sub was lifted from its watery perch, pulled up all the way to the high ceiling and away from its exit point. Below, two half-moon doors slid out from the dock's undercarriage, coming together to cut off the exit point from which they'd arrived.

They were trapped!

"_This dock is now on an exit lockdown_," a pleasant female voice came over an unseen intercom, reporting the news as if pointing out the weather. "_Submersible traffic is suspended into administration confirms the surface can be repopulated. Please, enjoy your stay in Lazarus – guides will direct you to reception. Remember – a logical man is a Lazarus man."_

Sam didn't have time to digest the announcement. Another voice interrupted the intercom almost immediately – a voice all-too-familiar in these alien conditions.

"_A logical man indeed_," the new voice interjected. The scratchy growl was not some byproduct of this sprawling complex – but instead reflected the menacing words of Nihlus. "_It always plays the same in every dock. Meaningful ideals of reason and purpose…ha! Meaning, purpose! The jokes are pathetic, and I find them crude._"

"_It's…hmm, right now you're probably crying over the death of Ms. Bowie, aren't you Miss Parker?_" Nihlus continued. Sam recoiled in horror – even down here, he'd managed to target _her. _So much for control. "_Right after the 99__th__ Hunger Games, and I have nothing better to do with my time but re-visit this place's sickening stench. It smells like a cancer…a viroid vector of vexations, all of them disgustingly human. Blech. I find myself needing to vomit."_

Nihlus's disjointed rant had stunned Sam's colleagues into silence. She felt their stares, one-by-one, coming to settle on her as her adversary continued: "_But I have plans for you, Ms. Parker…for you, when you come to this place that forged me. You see, I'll make sure you land in the 100__th__ Hunger Games, the 4__th__ Quarter Quell…the joyous celebration of Capitol power that I have all-too-easily laid my fingerprints on. I'll make sure you win it, too, land right in my lap just as I kick-start these pathetic Vox I control into a firestorm of anarchic revolution. _

"_A perfect fit for you…and for me. And while the 'surface' tears itself apart in war yet again, defiling every 'purpose' these arrogant scum down here once tried to profess, I will bring you to where it all began. You see, Ms. Parker, I think you and I are simply attached like this…I find you just so much fun to wind around my finger, testing the limits of someone so unequivocally human. So…representative of everything that everyone in this dead city hated. Think of Lazarus as your 101__st__ Hunger Games. I look forward to seeing whether or not you survive...oh, and lest I forget, my the odds be ever in your favor."_

* * *

_**A/N: I understand the logic behind keeping Rory and Finnick on the surface and sending Lily and River down is…wonky strategizing at best, but hey. They've all proven themselves in the Games, even if my crew is admittedly lacking in guys (and I figured I'd be boring people if I did yet another re-iteration of Annie+Finnick...) And yeah, I realize the concept here is kinda…unscientific. I needed to mix things up, introduce new topics for the second half of the series, and begin to explain my version of Panem's and Nihlus's backstories – all done easier in a closed environment. Things will explain themselves over time, don't fear.**_


	9. Separated

"So…what is even going on here?"

Jetty's worried words broke a long silence. Sam's confidence withered under the sustained stares from her peers, picking apart her will in this foreign setting.

"I think only one person knows that," Johanna growled. "Time to ante up, brainless."

"Look," Sam tried her best to defend herself, her voice cracking under the strain. "I _don't_ know what's going on here! I don't know why Nihlus keeps picking me out, why he's done this…"

"So who's Nihlus then?" Johanna folded her arms across her breast, leaning against one of the pristine white walls. "Some buddy of yours from the Capitol?"

"No!" Sam denied vigorously. "No – he's not…not even a person! He's something they cooked up, and now he keeps coming after me. He was there in the arena. He was in District 10…it's like he just keeps coming back. Ever since the 98th Games, he's just followed me around."

"So we have to you to thank for being stuck here?" Johanna spat, fed up with the situation already. "Gee, thanks."

"Hey," Firth stood up to defend Sam. "Johanna, why don't you go get a life?"

"You want to fight about it, chosen one?" she retorted quickly. "Your dad's not here. I'll bash your teeth in."

"How about we all chill out instead?" Cheyenne broke in, gritting her teeth and showing visible signs of stress under controlling a band of loose cannons. "Killing each other's fine if you want to listen to that guy and really make this another Hunger Games, but I'm a little more interested in ending this sub's lockdown myself. If doing what we came to do sounds good to you, you're more than welcome to join me. If you want to kill each other, please don't get it all over me."

Johanna backed off, muttering something under her breath. _One more hurdle to jump_, Sam thought. _Nihlus and a big underwater whatever fills with who-knows-what, and now Johanna Mason wants to take a chunk out of me too. Great._

At least Firth had stuck up for her, if nobody else would. She needed all the support she could get now.

"We will not find any miracles here," Locust grunted, as if the entire spat hadn't happened. "We should search the rest of the premises."

"Right on," Cheyenne agreed. "We stick together, try to find something that can fix any of this – and if there's supplies or anything else that can help us survive up on the island with the others, we grab it. We're not just down here to play around."

The dock turned out to be a small facility. A tiny control room suitable for two people at max offered few clues, with only a one-way view into the docking room itself. The controls were useless: A few computer consoles at first offered hope, but they refused to even turn on under Locust's competent fingers. Whoever had their hand on the mechanisms of this dock wasn't to be found here – and Sam and the group would have to keep looking, deeper into the heart of the nexus.

"Look," Lily had let her eyes wander around the place, her short stature and young age making her mostly ignored by the stronger, more experienced members of the group. "Can these help?"

Sam figured out what she'd found immediately. There was no mistaking the three boxy black devices hanging on the wall, each with a pair of slits. Sam had seen similar things around the Capitol, with flippant citizens gabbing away into them. They were radios.

"Nice find," Jetty nodded in approval. "But are we gonna need 'em? If we're sticking together, after all…"

"Better safe than sorry," Cheyenne said. "Who knows what's waiting for us now. I'll take one; Locust, you take another – and Firth, take the last one. If we get split up somehow, we'll at least be able to get a general idea of how to get back together."

_Easier said than done_, Sam thought. No doubt Nihlus had set plenty of different ways to break up the little group.

The former tributes had little choice but to leave the white-walled dock. Firth led the way, with Cheyenne and Johanna holding up the rear. Sam noticed the two middle-aged women exchanging words, hot in a debate of one thing or another. Once again, she figured it was about her.

_You're messing everything up, Sammy. Look what you've gotten everyone into!_

The first passage out of the dock gave a startling view to the world around Lazarus. Strange fish swam about lazily, ignoring the humans making their slow tread through the cylindrical clear tunnel below. Squid the size of Lily dangled their arms out behind their fleshy bodies, squirming through the spotlight-lit water with halting starts. Every now and then Sam could pick out large silhouettes creatures looming above and around her – whales or sharks, perhaps, animals she'd heard second-hand through Firth and River or via school lessons back in District 10.

Something else inhabited these depths, however – something decidedly human.

Loud words rang out from speakers hidden in the tunnel's construction, raining angry accusations with a heavy accent on Sam and her companions: "_Brotherhood! Invaders tread on our land. They seek to defile our pantheon, and their arms are change and blasphemy! Drive them back into the sea, and cleanse our basilica of their sin!_"

Before Sam or the others had a chance to react, a giant _creeeeaaaakk!_ rang through the tunnel. Sam had barely a chance to glance back at Cheyenne before she saw the danger: A small cylinder hurtled towards the tunnel at breakneck speed outside in the water. Cheyenne had time to shout a frantic "Go!" towards Sam and the others ahead before the weapon slammed into the passage.

_Bam!_ An explosion threw Sam off her feet. She didn't have time to clear her head from a cloud of stars before a wall of sea water slammed into her at full force. Sam caught a mouthful of salty ocean as the giant wave cascaded in, unleashed to wreak havoc by the torpedo's impact.

Sam saw Firth and Persephone washed past her as she struggled to grab something, anything in the fierce, howling chaos. The gunmetal gray hatch in front of her exploded open in the face of the water's force, dragging Sam into the void. She coughed and choked against the water's assault as her lungs rebelled violently. Sam felt her thoughts wavering as she let the water throw her body around like a rag doll, bashing it against a wall of the tunnel and hurling it past the broken door.

_Slam!_ An emergency hatch broke her fall, shutting tightly behind her and cutting off the flooded tunnel from where she'd fallen. Sam hacked up gallons of sea from her water-logged lungs, curling up into the fetal position and letting her body expel the foul-tasting stuff.

"Cough it up. You're okay, Sam…"

Firth leaned over her, placing his hand on the small of her back as she continued to choke up salt water. He was sopping wet himself, with his bronze hair matted down into thick clumps from the sudden entrance of the ocean. Sam managed to squeeze open her eyes against the pain, coughing violently as she looked around.

She'd landed in an entirely different place. Gone were the soft, rounded curves of synthetic white walls and high-tech docking claws. Replacing them was walls of bland gray concrete and steel singed with burn marks, surrounding ugly, ripped furniture designed with efficiency in mind. A tall ceiling housed blinking, stuttering yellow lights, neglected by disrepair and time. It was as if the water had taken away the entire setting, replacing it with something much more familiar and horrific: The sights and symbols of decay.

"Where'd we end up?" Sam managed to gasp through her coughing bouts.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Firth replied. "Looks like we got separated…already…"

Sam looked about to figure out his intent. River and Jetty lay nearby, each clearing their lungs from the deluge and soaked to the bone. Lily lay on her side nearby in a pool of water, grabbing her neck with a pained expression. Finally, Persephone had already gotten up, trying desperately to wring out water from her now-limp hair.

_Of course the girl from District 1 immediately thinks about how she'll look after the ocean attacks her…_

"_Are you all dead?"_ Firth's radio perked to life. Sam was shocked he'd even managed to hold onto the thing – let alone that it still worked after the deluge. "_If so, do I get all your stuff? I know Persephone has a lot of stuff. Mostly outfits. I doubt she uses the same one twice."_

"Sounds like Johanna," Firth mused. "I guess they made it out okay."

He examined his radio momentarily, finding a red button on its side and pressing it as he spoke: "It's Firth. We're fine – mostly. Are you three alright?"

"_Locust looks like shit, but that's normal. Nobody's dead? Damn."_

Sam heard a "Give me that," coming from the other side of the radio before Cheyenne's voice came in strong: "_We're cut off from you guys. There's a second tunnel of here_ _at the dock, but I have no idea where it goes – by the looks of it, there's an adjacent squarish building that doesn't connect to yours. Can you guys sit tight until we get there?"_

"How 'bout this?" Firth looked around at the dilapidated surroundings, glancing up disappointedly at the flickering lights. "We'll have a look around here and try not to get even more separated, since we have only one radio. Stay in touch, and we'll try and meet up somewhere. Maybe we can figure out this place faster."

"_Alright, fine. Try not to get yourselves all killed._ _Although I bet Johanna might like that_."

The radio cut silent and Firth pocketed it on his belt. He pulled Sam up by one hand, gazing around the wide, broad foyer with a look of despondence. "This is just a nightmare already. How'd we go from one nice-looking place to this dump?"

"It's probably –_" _Sam began. She didn't get a chance to finish, however.

From far off down the open, concrete-lined atrium, a quiet humming reached her ears. Sam spotted a bright white glow coming from around a corner, lighting up a dirty patch of concrete. She found herself involuntarily moving closer to Firth – what now? What other problem did Nilhus, or whoever the heck was down here, want to send their way?

"_Hmm hmmm-hmmmm,"_ the humming continued. The interloper continued until turning the corner, finally revealing itself – and showing someone about as alien as Sam could have imagined.

"Oh!" a steel-blue sphere hovered out from the hall, wandering into the foyer. A perfect triangle of white lights looked back at Sam from a glossy, steel-blue globular body, ringed with white points of illumination around its equator. It hovered as if by magic, whiffing about the air on tiny jets of light. Its words rang with a cheerful tenor, bright and chirpy in this desolate place.

"I had assumed the Brotherhood had detonated another bomb in this terminal," the sphere ruminated. "But newcomers – oh my! Introductions, yes, necessary…_ahem_. *I* am Ecclesiastes 38 Scion, systems watchman of this station. I am responsible for necessary maintenance and ongoing activity of the Lazarus institute."

"Wait a minute," River had managed to clear out the water from her lungs, holding up a dripping hand to Scion. "You're a talking robot?"

"I am most certainly not!" Scion replied as if horrified by the notion, his frontal triad of lights flashsing bright red temporarily in indignation. "I am an artificial intelligence matrix designed for the sustenance of this installation – over however many years it would take to ensure the surface was cleared for human recolonization."

"Slow down, slow down," Firth interjected. "Are you saying you know the ins and outs of this place?"

"Why…of course," Scion hesitated, as if the question were absurd. "I am designed with full schematics to the Lazarus facility."

"Hold on," Sam tried to slow everyone down, her throat finally clearing enough to let her speak clearly. "We just got cut off from the dock. There was some sort of…lockdown, or something, that kept our sub from leaving. Is there somewhere in here we can reverse that?"

"Oh dear," Scion commented, tilting back in midair as if raising an eyebrow. "I am afraid that will involve traversing straight through Brotherhood territory…which is a particularly lethal place for organics such as yourself."

"Why?" Sam asked. "Where do we have to go?"

"The Brotherhood is a religious order of zealots," Scion commented. "They inflicted the damage to this terminal via an incendiary munition, destroying the once-prestigious décor that lined the walls. They have occupied much of the city. In order to access external dock controls…I am afraid you will need guidance to the center of the city, in Lazarus Central Control."

"Can you get us there?" Sam ignored the rest of what he said. If this…Scion…whatever he was, had access to something that could free them from this escalating nightmare of Nihlus's design, she'd gladly take it.

"Why, of course," Scion remarked. "This is a terminal for the Lazarus Underground, after all. But I must warn you – there is no safe passage to the core of this facility."


	10. Change of Plans

_**A/N: Shout to Princesss of no Hope, Cinicz, and TheHungerGamesFan01 for the continued reviews! Always makes a writer's day to hear back from readers…and yeah, that's the same Scion, Princesss, heh; he's been around a while.**_

* * *

"…Approximately 446 years since this installation has been submerged. During that time, contact with the surface was achieved only twice. It is currently the 2,517th year in the common era."

Scion rattled away upbeat answers to River's boundless litany of questions. The robotic sphere had led Sam and her fellow former tributes to a sort of subway station in the base of the "terminal," as Scion referred to the dilapidated building. A run-down, boxy train car had sat lonely at the station, waiting for passengers who clearly hadn't graced its beige interior and motley padded seats in many years. The futuristic, curved surroundings of the dock had been a deceptive site as compared to what else Sam had seen so far.

Still, if the forgotten train took them to where they needed to go, Sam would put up with it. The slow, jerking train ride gave a curious River plenty of time to pick over their newest guide's mind, anyhow.

"What's the common era?" River asked Scion.

"An arbitrary time standard established by a sixth-century monk and canonized by the historical emperor Charlemagne, promoting its widespread use during the Dark Ages," Scion answered to a tee, spitting off facts Sam had no inkling of. "The 2,071st year of which witnessed the conclusion of the latest incarnation of recorded human civilization. An act from which I was created."

"Wait," River interjected, her curiosity getting the better of any concern regarding the alien surroundings. "Was that…when the world before…"

"Ended," Scion finished. "As Ecclesiastes 3:8 states, there is a time for war and a time for peace. This was a truly global war fostered by the forces of the democratic Assembly of Nations and the free-market Corporate Alliance. As radiological and biological weapons devastated the world's habitable land, I and my forefathers were entrusted with a Domain – to reinvent human civilization when the time was ripe to venture onto land once more. That point..."

Sam wasn't as eager to listen to the drone's spiel. She wanted to get a grip on the current situation – and as Firth argued with Cheyenne over his radio about the group's moves, Sam took a seat on a ripped couch beside Jetty and Persephone.

"Sam," Jetty looked tentative as she spoke up quietly. "What…do you actually know anything of what's going on here? I mean…that voice back at the dock mentioned you…"

"I don't," Sam shook her head and closed her eyes. "I really don't."

"We're not trying to press," Persephone interrupted quickly to dispel any worries. "We just…y'know, it's best if everyone knows everything we can, right?"

"He…" Sam paused. How much should she reveal to these two? Admittedly they were in the same boat, but Persephone and Jetty weren't originally like Sam, River, Lily, and the others. They were bred as Careers. They killed for a living, despite a pair of pretty faces. "Nihlus, he just said…in the arena, when I confronted him at the end of the Games, he told me he'd been sent somewhere once; that he'd been _created_, not born like everyone else. He said later when we were in that…prison, I guess, that he wanted me to 'see something.' I guess this is what he meant."

"And who is this Nihlus again?" Persephone asked.

"He said in the arena that he had attacked the Control Center," Sam shrugged. "I guess he took you guys all in as well."

Jetty's mouth nearly dropped as she exchanged a fearful glance with Persephone. Clearly, Nihlus had done _something_ to shock those victors back in the Capitol.

"The big guy with the dark eyes?" Jetty asked, with Sam giving a nod in return. "He…pretty much killed all the staff in the building. We were all locked in the District 4 suite…since you were allies with River, Firth, and all…but we got a pretty good view of it."

"It's a lot more complicated," Sam sighed. "It's like he can be anywhere he wants at any time. He leads the Vox; he serves the President; everything."

Persephone's face turned ashen in response, although Jetty didn't put two and two together: "The Vox?"

"They're…a rebel group," Persephone stuttered.

"What?" Jetty looked at her strangely. "How do _you_ know that?"

"They kept throwing up graffiti around the downtown," the blonde-haired young woman replied. "On all the buildings in District 1. I just assumed they were trying to make trouble, but if they're actually organized…maybe it's more."

"So he's like a puppet-master?" Jetty looked between Sam and Persephone. "Then we're kinda in trouble."

Before Sam could agree, the train shook hard with the sudden application of the brakes. A pleasant female voice came over the intercom, announcing, "_An unidentified object of sufficient size has been located ahead on the tracks. Coming to a stop at the Hall of Medicine. Please, enjoy your stay._"

Scion motored over to a control panel inside the run-down train car, ejecting a small robotic arm from his carapace and slicing into the system. His lights flickered blue in dismay momentarily: "Oh dear."

"What?" Firth nodded at the drone. "What'd you find? And where's this…Medical Hall, or whatever we're stopping at?"

"The Hall of Medicine is the preeminent hospital in the Lazarus facility," Scion chirped. "Caution. The object on the tracks…is the _Pathogen_."

"The what?" Firth raised an eyebrow.

"Haste is necessary!" Scion bleated, disconnecting from the control panel and hovering to the train car's doors. "It is of the utmost importance to control this outbreak!"

"Slow down," Firth said. "Can you explain –"

The train car shook to a halt at the station. A strange grunting noise came from outside the vehicle as Jetty and Sam made their way over to the doors, preparing to exit. Sam took a step back at the sound – what now was waiting out there?

"_HRRRAAA!_"

The doors opened to an obese, dirty man with wild, red eyes, bending over the corpse of an elderly woman. He held a large syringe filled with a soupy olive liquid, and let out a ghoulish cry as soon as he made eye contact with Jetty. He lunged at her before anyone had a chance to react, jabbing the syringe deep into her shoulder.

"Foul creature!" Scion cried, turning his eyes to the attacker and lighting up with a bright blue glow.

The drone unleashed an electrical attack on the man, blasting the wild assaulter with a white-hot shot of lightning. The electric bolt connected just under the man's chin, sending waves of current jolting across his skin. The man quivered while letting out an animal whine, removing the syringe from Jetty as the young woman crawled away from her attacker. Scion poured on his surge of energy, blowing apart the man's neck and sending a blast of charred meat flying out of the train car.

"Jetty!" Persephone screamed, ignoring the smoldering pile of man on the concrete platform outside and hurrying to her friend's side. "Are you okay?"

"He…stuck me with something!" Jetty looked down at the syringe's pock mark in her left shoulder. "What was that?"

"A feral former member of the Brotherhood," Scion sounded unfazed as the drone floated out onto the platform. "It is an increasingly common sight as this facility devolves. You can identify his allegiance via -"

"Clear this up!" Sam pointed angrily towards Jetty as she addressed Scion. "What are these Brotherhood things? Why are they just…why'd that one attack her?"

"I believe I explained," Scion's words added a hint of irritation. "The Brotherhood is a religious order –"

"I know!" Sam flung her hands down in exasperation. "I need context! Are we going to be…fighting more of those things?"

"Assuming you initiate contact with them, certainly," Scion answered as if it were a routine question with an obvious answer. "The Brotherhood effectively controls 70% of the Lazarus facility from their 'Basilica' at the heart of the sprawl. They do not take kindly to outsiders of any type threatening their holdings – most especially ones such as yourselves. Surface-dwellers were not kindly received the last time."

"What last time?"

Scion's lights blipped on and off, as if the drone blinked in amazement. "Why…I had assumed you would have understood that, being from the surface. A group referring to themselves as vaguely 'from the Capitol' ventured here fifty standard years ago. I trust you distinguish the contextual reference?"

Sam gulped. Of course the Capitol had gotten here first – maybe they hadn't learned _everything_ from this place, but what better way to learn how to perfect mutts? To gain the technology and weapons to control the districts? It made too much sense.

_And what better way to learn how to make something like Nihlus?_

Of course Nihlus wanted her here. This…this was where he had been _conceived._

"Sam, we don't have time for all that!" Persephone looked frantic as she huddled over Jetty. For her part, Jetty didn't look particularly bad. "I wanna know what that guy stabbed her with! And we're in this…medical place…"

"The Hall of Medicine," Scion corrected her unnecessarily.

"I don't care!" Persephone shouted back. "Where can we take her?"

"There is a processing ward approximately three hundred meters from this station," Scion quipped. "Although I do not understand –"

"Let's go," Persephone looked agitated.

"Persephone, are you sure that's a real good idea?" Firth raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Look, she looks okay…"

"I don't feel good," Jetty instantly countered Firth's claim. "Kinda queasy."

"Can you take us there?" Persephone looked back at Scion. "Now?"

"Certainly," Scion chirped. "I would be happy to assist."

River had walked over onto the dirty concrete station pier, hopping over the body the attacker had crouched upon as she examined the syringe he had wielded. The viscous liquid inside seemed to churn to River's inspection – as if something _alive_ seethed in the olive stew. The man had only been able to dump a little of the contents into Jetty's shoulders – plenty more of the mixture remained inside.

"This doesn't look like…anything normal," River speculated. "I think Persephone's right."

"Of course I'm right!" Persephone said. "Let's go."

All the while, Lily had remained aboard the train car – unwilling to go out after the sudden attack of the wild man. She'd curled up in a seat, clutching her knees and shivering slightly. _Too much for a twelve year-old girl_, Sam thought. _Too much for any of us, really. River's only fourteen. Heck, I'm only seventeen. What am I doing here?_

Nihlus was right. It really was the 101st Hunger Games down here – yet another frantic fight for survival with the elements ready to kill at a moment's notice. The Gamesmakers had simply been replaced with whatever insane residents of Lazarus remained – whether these "Brotherhood" fanatics Scion spoke of fit the bill or not – and the arena morphed into this last, dying vestige of a long-forgotten time. No simple undersea stroll was this.

"Hey, Lily?" Sam reached over and placed a reassuring hand on her pale arm. "Are you doing okay?"

"No," Lily murmured, her voice barely audible. "No. I thought I could go home after the arena. I want to go home."

"I know," Sam gave her a hug, pushing her own fears away in order to comfort the youngest member of the group, even if just for a moment. "I know, Lily. None of us want to be here…but we have to stick together through it, alright? We can get out of here; just like we got out of the arena together. But I need you to be strong again. Can you do that?"

Lily nodded slowly: "I don't want to be alone here."

"You won't be," Sam patted her arm. "I'll stick with you. Just stay with me, River, Firth, and we'll all be safe."

"Sam?" River spoke from behind her. "This doesn't look right."

"What doesn't?" Sam replied, helping Lily up and out onto the dull, poorly-lit train platform.

"This."

River held up the syringe towards one of the high ceiling lanterns, letting the milky light illuminate the olive contents within.

"I don't think we should take that with us," Sam cautioned. "River, there's junk in there. Who knows what's in that."

"Remember that thing that attacked us in the arena?" River ignored Sam's warning. "The one that killed Regal, the girl from District 1?"

_Jeez, how do I forget?_ Sam thought. The point from Regal marching her towards her intended death – followed quickly by River's well-placed harpoon shot right before the monstrous, horrific mutt had bulldozed the arrogant tribute from District 1 and strewn her body parts across the arena's rainforest – hadn't been an event she would likely forget any time soon. Or ever.

"What about it?"

"Maybe it's just me," River looked back towards where Firth and Persephone were helping Jetty get moving. "But…something about this fluid stuff reminds me of that mutt's color. I don't know if it's the way this is moving, or just how it looks in the light…but I can't get over the feeling. It just screams that it's related…and Scion said the Capitol had been here before. What if…"

Sam didn't need to imagine the consequences there. Had the man stabbed Jetty with mutt-juice? Apart from the horrific visions Sam realized from that, what would that even do?

River's own calm under fire surprised Sam just as much. The girl from District 4 had been paralyzed upon seeing the sea all around her at first – still scared by the Capitol's myriad of torture mechanisms. Yet through that all, she'd managed to put aside her lingering doubts and focus on the here and now – impressive for a girl of her stature, just two weeks after escaping the end of the Hunger Games with her life. No more was she the small, stoic girl approaching her tentatively during the Victory Tour stop in District 4 a year and a half ago: River had done far too much growing up for her age.

"I don't think we can do much about it until we see if Jetty's okay," Sam said. "C'mon, we're gonna fall behind the others."

River followed Sam and Lily away from the platform, towards a dimly-lit hallway of mottled gray and ivory tile that Firth and Persephone escorted their injured friend down. Scion hummed away happily behind them, bobbing in the air like a fishing lure and completely oblivious to the terrified young minds around him.

"Are you holding up alright?" Sam asked River. She kept a firm hand holding onto Lily as the trio walked to catch up. "It feels like it's been forever since the end of the Games, when it's only been a couple weeks."

"Fine," River sniffed. "No, not fine. Sam, I'm from District 4. I grew up around the sea…but the Capitol, when they were asking everyone else questions and interrogating them…they never asked me anything. They always just tied me down to a table when they wanted something from someone else. They'd throw sea water on me, shoot me with electric shocks…I don't get it. Now my heart starts racing when I even just _see_ the ocean, and here we are _under_ it. If I can't handle this, how am I supposed to be okay back home?"

"River," Sam said, almost moved to tears by the girl's pouring out of her heart for her. "Don't try to grow up too fast, okay?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We're still just kids," Sam replied, gripping Lily tighter as she spoke. "We shouldn't even be here. We should be home, doing things all kids do…playing, talking, having fun. We shouldn't already have gone through the Hunger Games, and now forced…down here, where nobody knows what's going on. Don't try to figure out everything at once. Maybe if we just do what we need to now…things will work themselves out."

River harrumphed in silent agreement, clearly not swayed entirely by Sam's reassurance. She held an unhealthy skepticism of things close to her heart, hewn in from growing up working-class in District 4 and followed up with Gannet's death, serving as a tribute in the Games, and now this. Sam couldn't blame her – what spark of hope would she have come to hold on to?

For that matter, what hope existed under the ocean at all? Perhaps Jetty's attack was only the first misfortune here beneath the waves.


	11. Nihlus's Plan

_**A/N: Sorry for possible confusion as to the rather sudden turn of settings I've chosen here – it'll be explained throughout, but I'll really be getting into the backstory's meat in this chapter. Suffice to say, the Hunger Games trilogy never made any serious ties with the world that came before the cataclysm that gave rise to Panem – that is to say, our modern world. I intend to do so. Of course, I also intend to tie in Nihlus, since he's just…so much fun…and the central piece to this entire series' plot, so yeah. Important chapter alert!**_

* * *

"Help her up on that gurney. Maybe there's something in here we can use to figure this out."

Firth and Sam helped lift Jetty onto a bland gray surgical gurney inside the first ward the group could find. It had taken Scion's bumbling directions to make any real progress inside the Medical Hall, although it was clear to Sam that no one had thought this through. None of them were _doctors_ – who could figure out what the crazy man had stabbed Jetty with?

Or, for that matter, why it had made her vomit all over Firth's front as he had helped her along.

"I need to barf again," Jetty moaned. In just minutes, she'd gone from perfectly healthy to clutching her stomach in waves of nausea – it baffled Sam.

"Just lean over the side," Firth said, obviously still smarting from having the young woman leave the contents of her stomach down his shirt.

"Firth, we have to do something!" Persephone wrung her hands over Jetty. "We can't just let her sit here!"

_What else are we supposed to do?_ Sam thought. This place was entirely alien. The processing ward lay empty and silent, with a dozen beds around them waiting for patients who would never come. Dim sterile lighting shone down on a dirty, grimy floor, with white tile stained in brown splotches. Maybe this hospital had once been something glamorous, but it wasn't even suited for treating the animals in District 10 now.

"I'm not a doctor, Persephone!" Firth replied, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "I have no idea where to even begin. What am I supposed to do, diagnose her with 'getting stabbed by some crazy bum with a needle next to a train?' What the heck am I supposed to prescribe for that, a shotgun?"

"That is _not_ funny!" Persephone yelled back, her face scrunching up into an ugly scowl. "I don't know, look in those drawers or something!"

The short, stubby medical drawers alongside the dirty walls that she pointed to certainly didn't seem to Sam as if they'd have much in the way of treatment options. They'd be lucky to find rotting food in there, if not something horrific like a disembodied hand. This place gave her the creeps.

Jetty took advantage of a lull in the row to vomit all over the floor.

"Look," Firth ran a hand through his hair after she'd finished. "You can bitch all day at me –"

"_Bitching?_ Don't you –"

"Or you can freaking help me to find something so she stops puking everywhere," Firth had clearly lost his sense of tact by this point. "You, me – River, come help us – we'll go search around this place; see if we can find anything that looks useful. I have no idea _what_ will be left in this run-down hole, but I'll figure that out later. Sam…stick here with Jetty. Keep Lily and the drone with you."

Sam kept her mouth closed. The friction between Persephone and Firth had flamed up out of nowhere. Granted, Jetty was Persephone's close friend – particularly among two victors who had won in back-to-back Hunger Games – but wasn't cooperation worth something in a time like this?

Still, the time here – with quiet little Lily and a sick Jetty who didn't look in the mood to talk much – would give her time to figure out how to put these pieces together.

"Okay," Sam confronted Scion as soon as Firth, Persephone, and River had left on their search. "I need to know about all this."

"More questions? Splendid!" Scion remarked overenthusiastically.

"No, not splendid," Sam raised her palm to the spherical drone. "Tell me – did a person named Nihlus ever come through this whole…this city? This thing?"

Scion's cheer fled in a hurry. The drone pulled back a few inches, hovering back and forth as it appraised Sam with blinking lights. "I have record of a 'Nihlus.' It did not refer to itself that way during its most recent visit."

"Wait," Sam eagerly hurried on. "What do you mean? What did he do down here?"

The drone seemed to bristle at the words, shuddering visibly while hovering in the air: "Why, it released the Pathogen."

"You mentioned that. What is that? What did he do?"

"Oh dear," Scion replied. "Edification is necessary. After all, the fragile female on that table is infected with it."

"What?!" Sam nearly screamed, her eyes almost exploding from shock. "Why didn't you tell Firth and Persephone that before they left? Why…"

_Of course_, she thought, her hands digging around her pockets. _They took the radio. I have no way to tell them…because they could have gone anywhere. I'll have to wait until they come back_.

"It did not seem prudent," Scion mused. "Containing the pathogen is of utmost importance. Your companions were far more interested in finding a 'cure.'"

"Why's that bad?"

"It does not exist, naturally."

Sam took a hard gulp, hoping Jetty hadn't heard that. She looked over to the gurney, where Lily had pushed the young woman from District 4 away from the fresh vomit all over the floor. Hopefully she was too sick to have been listening…

"You're telling me…we can't cure that?" Sam pointed vaguely in Jetty's direction, her words softer and slower. "What can we do to help her?"

"But you do not comprehend!" Scion's chirping, electronic voice made up for Sam's in volume. "Curious. Allow me to elucidate."

The drone floated over to a wall, extending a small probe from its carapace and plugging it into a small hole just above a ratty bed. Its equatorial band of lights glowed brightly, projecting a flickering square of illumination a meter square on the dirt-streaked wall. Images began to form – pictures, times, places, things Sam couldn't comprehend.

"I was constructed four hundred forty-nine years ago as a cyberwarfare matrix," Scion began brightly, showing an image of a strange symbol – concentric white circles with strange shapes within them, flanked below by two leaves on a light blue background. Sam had seen the leaves in District 11 – olive leaves. "The Assembly of Nations governed the world after the Intercontinental War of the year 2,053. My makers within the Assembly developed my construct to safeguard against electronic warfare as a conglomeration of business entities formed the Corporate Alliance, to operate outside the single world government's grasp. The two entities naturally began to war during the same year I came online."

"Wait," Sam paused Scion. "You're…four hundred years old?"

"Four hundred forty-nine years, five months, and 23 days," Scion corrected her. "As I was proceeding before your interruption: During the final months of global war, the Corporate Alliance formed a biological weapon to counter its dwindling stockpile of nuclear munitions."

Scion's projection changed, from the former flag-like symbol into two pictures side-by-side: one showing a nuclear mushroom cloud, the other a vial of frothing olive liquid. "The weapon was not a virus or bacterial entity, as your companions believe while they seek a non-existent 'cure.' It is a fungal mutagen."

"A what?" The complex word choice had thrown Sam completely off base.

"A fungus designed to rebuild an infected host's structure, organs, and genetics," Scion spoke as he tried to simplify his language. "It is parasitic – it destroys the patient's nervous system as it takes over and replaces it with its own. Like an ant colony, the Pathogen's own nervous system evolves with a greater mass."

"Slow down," Sam said. "Big words."

"I dearly apologize," Scion rebuked himself. "The larger the Pathogen is, the smarter it is. It eventually begins to act less as a creature and more as an intelligent being. The Alliance did not foresee this; their scientists were inferior. Ultimately, the Pathogen, once released onto battlefields, began wiping out all traces of life in infection zones. The Alliance was forced to destroy its own territory with nuclear weapons to contain it, contributing to its hastening defeat in the war."

"So," Sam tried to piece all the information together. "This…thing…that Jetty's infected with. It…_ended_ the world?"

"Indirectly, yes," Scion acknowledged. "On the defensive, the Alliance ignored the laws of war and began to unilaterally eradicate my creators without regard for consequences. The faction unleashed nuclear, orbital, and chemical attacks – poisoning and leveling territory in great swaths. My makers responded in kind. 90% of humanity was extinguished in the first thirty days of unrestricted warfare."

"Jeez," Sam breathed. "How…how many people was that?"

"Approximately 11 billion," Scion answered, changing screens to a picture of the Lazarus facility during its construction – with giant underwater vessels moving great slabs of metal and stone. "My creators in the Assembly understood that their civilization had ended. Led by a figure known as Prometheus, they built this facility as a last resort – to repopulate the Earth after the war's effects had subsided upon the surface. Prometheus, the visionary, soon died, however – and the Lazarus facility existed under proper order for a mere fifty years."

"Why?" Sam asked.

"My creators designed the facility on ideals of reason and logical adherence," Scion replied. "It was assumed that such traits would eradicate the tendencies of hedonism and self-interest reflected by the Alliance's business interests. Such a policy left little room for the many humans brought to this station – many who held far different ideals, such as those of faith, greed, and other opposing interests. One of the facility's greatest biologists saw the rift and took the chance to attain power. He, Urban Alexander, organized the dissidents into a massive, zealous majority calling itself 'The Brotherhood.'"

"The same…" Sam began.

"Indeed," Scion cut her off. "The Brotherhood quickly eradicated the former leaders and established hegemony. They have ruled since, although I have spread what automated systems I have to contain their abuses over the past four centuries. Pockets of unaligned humans also exist, although they are few in number. Only the outlying docks and the innermost control center of the facility remain free of Brotherhood incursions."

"So, let me get this straight," Sam said. "We have to get to the center of the city, but to do that, we have to go through all these crazy…zealots, I guess, who run the place."

"Correct."

"So what does all that have to do with Nihlus?"

"The human, whom the white-clothed companions referred to as Nihlus, verbally expressed a disdain for natural life aloud to himself as he explored the facility thirty years ago," Scion explained. "He savored particular disdain for the Brotherhood's idealism, wielding a brand of nihilism himself. However, he came into contact with the Pathogen at the center of this facility – and, realizing that its destructive power of assimilation of all life could further his goals, he released it into the facility at large as an experiment."

"What?" Sam gasped. "You still _had_ this…this thing?"

"Of course," Scion sounded pained by Sam's disbelief, his lights flashing red momentarily. "My creators believed it had life-giving potential as well. The Pathogen was studied, explored. Urban Alexander himself was a leading researcher on the project – he in fact proved its potential, as he created advanced biological weapons for his Brotherhood minions that grafted directly onto their skeletons. This 'Nihlus' announced to himself out loud that he saw its ability to tackle his own means on the surface. He did have a habit of talking to himself."

_Oh jeez,_ Sam thought. The picture of why Nihlus had wanted her down here became clearer and clearer with each of Scion's words. "Did he take this…disease…up with him when he left?"

"Certainly," Scion remarked. "But he was quite clear when he spoke to himself. He wanted to infect a human of his choice. It was his 'project' – to seed the species on the surface with a single figure's infection. He referred to it as 'messianic.'"

Sam had no doubts about who Nihlus had picked. Who had he followed? Who had he constantly tortured with his words, his presence – pursuing like a relentless hound? And if he had been around thirty years, there was no telling if she was the first person he'd ever taken an attraction to…

She'd forgotten all about Jetty – not to mention Finnick and the others on the surface, or even escaping from this place. Something larger was at work. Nihlus had gotten his hand on a weapon – one with such lethal killing force that even the Capitol wouldn't be able to stop it. It had threatened the world once, according to Scion. It could do it again – especially under Nihlus's conniving hands. She wouldn't be his pawn. She had to stop him instead.

"Listen," Sam addressed Scion. "At that…control center, wherever it is we're supposed to go. You said research had been done on this…disease. Did you ever find something to stop it?"

"Quite naturally," Scion affirmed brightly. "Although I have since been locked out of the control center since the 'Nihlus' character departed in his first visit thirty years ago. I would require access to obtain the plans."

"That's what I need," Sam said. "Whatever I have to do to get there, I'll do it. Just tell me what I have to do."

"That will be quite difficult," Scion answered. "You are a delicate human. The Pathogen –"

"If it's just a disease, I'll be careful," Sam said. "Besides…maybe I can help Jetty in the process when we find that."

"You misunderstand," Scion replied quickly, rocking back and forth while hovering about. "The Pathogen has reached critical levels."

"What does that mean?"

"It has formed a central intelligence – the proverbial hive mind 'ant colony' to refer to the earlier metaphor. It no longer acts as a mere fungus – it performs the same roles as any human being, with the additional advantage of controlling all parts of itself during a single time."

Sam gulped – and once again, things sounded far too familiar. Who else had she known who could be in more than one place at a time? Who else seemed to know everything all at once – at the same time?

He'd done more than walk these halls. This was where Nihlus had learned _everything_ – where he'd become more than just another foe, but something entirely diabolical. If Sam didn't get the answers she needed to stop him here, she never would. The game had changed. It was no longer about escape and survival – she had a goal, one that extended far beyond her own priorities. Nihlus's idle rants about hating humanity suddenly seemed far more dangerous – and he had the tools to back up his words.

The only question was – if he'd managed to take this "Pathogen" with him, why hadn't he used it yet? Why bother with stalking her about forever?

"Okay," Sam exhaled slowly. "First –"

She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence. From across the ward, the door that Firth had closed as he left shook violently. Something impacted it hard – nearly breaking the hinges off with the force of the blow. Sam heard Lily utter a tiny shriek at the noise, as even Jetty managed to lift her sick head up in shock.

"Oh my," Scion remarked calmly.

"What?"

"It appears the Brotherhood has located this position," Scion said. "And I do believe they seek to initiate violence."


	12. The Crypt

_**A/N: New poll up on my profile page! Get your voice heard for the future of this series…**_

* * *

_Bam!_

Another impact slammed into the door, bending the metal hinges. Sam inhaled sharply at the sound, throwing a look back at Jetty and Lily in fear. She couldn't shield them against any attack by crazies massing outside – not with one not even into her teens; the other crippled by some bizarre sickness that apparently went far deeper than any mere disease.

"_Fucking interlopers,_" a grunge male voice from the other side of the door swore. "_Prometheans!_"

"What is he saying?" Sam asked Scion in a panicked tone. "What do they want?"

"The Brotherhood members must believe you and your charges to be influenced by Prometheus's ideals," Scion mused in a calm voice inappropriate for the situation. "It is a common line used by the group's followers against any who disagree. I count at least twelve outside from scans."

"Can you stop them?"

"Insufficient time. They will reach you first. I will be quite safe."

_Well, thanks_, Sam thought wryly. Fat lot of help Scion would do safe and sound if she were pulp on the end of a blunt instrument.

"Stall them," Sam told the robot, turning to her two wide-eyed companions. "Lily, can you help me get Jetty out? We can't stay here."

"What about Firth and the others?" Lily whimpered. "They don't know, they –"

"Can't worry about them," Sam gritted her teeth. She didn't want to come off as so heartless, but she had to do _something_. "We have to go. We don't have a choice. Jetty – can you walk?"

The young woman shook her head, looking on the verge of throwing up again: "Sam…just take her and leave."

"No!" Sam vociferously refused her. "I'm not just going to leave you here for…that mob!"

"Yes you will," Jetty reached over for Sam's hand, grabbing it with her two sweaty mitts. "Go save her. Save yourself."

"You're coming too!" Sam maintained her position.

"I killed people for fun in my Games," Jetty leaned back on her gurney, letting Sam's hand go. "D'you know that? I thought it was a good time, as a volunteer and a killer. Maybe this is what I earned. Go, Sam…take Lily, keep her safe. Just go. I'll do what I can…if I can. Maybe they'll be content with me. Do it."

Sam stalled. She couldn't just leave Jetty here – not to whatever the swarming people outside slamming against the door would do. They'd…no telling what they had in store, but if Scion's explanation of them held water, it wouldn't be good. On the other hand, Jetty had a point – if she couldn't walk very well, trying to hustle both her and Lily out to safety would be nearly impossible. They wouldn't be able to make up any ground, slowed by injury and inexperience in this underwater hell.

In the end, the decision was the most inhuman type: A call of numbers. Lose one, or lose them all.

"I'm sorry," Sam let a tear slip out of her eyes and down her nose, gripping Jetty's hand once for a final time. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Jetty replied. "Just go. Take Lily, find the others. Find a way out of here. Don't come back for me."

Sam gave her a curt smile and grabbed Lily's hand. Time to go.

The door blew off its hinges just as Sam began to run. She turned around to catch Scion igniting the first Brotherhood member to come sprinting in – a pot-bellied beast of a man in red warpaint whose face exploded in a shower of blood under the drone's electrical attack. Scion jetted after Sam and Lily immediately after taking down the first intruder, giving way to a horde of boisterous, howling savages running into the medical ward.

"Lily! Don't let go!" Sam shouted to her companion, gripping her hand tightly and half-dragging her from the room at top speed.

A bullet hissed past Sam's head, exploding into fragments as it hit a far wall. She ignored the surprise, ignored the sounds of something horrible behind her – there was nothing she could do now but keep running as grays, reds, and blacks of her surroundings raced past her eyes. _Run, run_ – all she could do was run.

At least in the Hunger Games, she had the option of fighting.

"There is a sealable set of chambers approximately fifty meters ahead," Scion reported as he floated alongside the two sprinting girls. "It will be sufficient to dissuade any pursues."

"What is it?" Sam panted as she ran.

"The morgue."

Sam and Lily raced ahead, uncaring of location as they rushed to get away. The thick doors to the morgue loomed large down a descending hallway, encased in giant slabs of carbon steel. They pulled apart as Sam slammed her hand into a control button, releasing pressure and unveiling their bowels to Sam, Lily, and Scion's entrance.

At this point, Sam didn't care _where_ they ended up. It was better than whatever Jetty was enduring now – if she was still alive.

A blast of frigid air hit Sam as she stepped into the morgue after throwing a look over her shoulder. Despite the lack of any pursuers, she wanted to get as far away from her attackers as possible. If this could keep them out – as Scion had said – then so be it. Who would even be in the morgue now, anyway? After hundreds of years, it was doubtful any bodies would still be down here.

"An interesting location," Scion quipped cheerfully as the great doors shut behind Sam and Lily. The drone hovered about in the air, examining iced-over gray, metal walls in the bare, squarish morgue foyer. "I am reading a 92% occupancy rate for this morgue's cryo-chambers."

"A what?" Sam shook her head.

"Ah, excuse me," the drone said. "Only 8% of the morgue's holding vaults are empty. There are many bodies down here."

_So much for no corpses_.

"Hmm-hmmmm," Scion hummed. "A time for war and a time for peace…and so much war, oh my."

Lily had slumped down against a barren wall as Scion had explained the predicament, her hands covering her face: "I can't believe we just left her…just…"

"Lily," Sam tried her best to soothe the girl's racing emotions. "I know, this isn't easy. We just have to find everyone else again; do our best to find a way out of this."

"What if we can't?" Lily refused to look up and give in to Sam's attempts at easing the pain. "What if we're stuck down here?"

"Don't you worry," Sam patted her head. "This is kinda my fault. I shouldn't have dragged everyone down here or even said anything…but I'll find a way out. I promise."

Sam felt sick herself, even if she didn't let Lily see. She _had_ just left Jetty behind back there in that dirty, dank medical room – even if her companion from District 4 had wanted it that way. How was she supposed to live that one down? At least when others in her life had died – such as Clara, or Storm, or Cal – she hadn't been able to intervene and save them. Jetty…she could have saved her, could have tried to help her.

_No,_ a voice in her head spoke up. _She would have slowed you down. None of you would have made it. You'd all be dead…Lily included. You saved her, at least_.

"Delightful!" Scion interjected at the wrong time. "I am picking up one life sign!"

_Way to be tactful_. "What do you mean 'life sign?'" Sam asked

"There is one living occupant in the morgue," Scion answered. "Frozen in cryostasis. How peculiar."

"Can he help us?"

"That perhaps is not advisable…"

_One person_, Sam thought. _Better than the mob that got Jetty_.

If whoever had been left in this horrible place could provide any sort of help, she would take it. Right now, Sam felt as if she had little hope: Firth and the others had no chance of reaching her without a radio, while she had only Scion to guide her around – a drone that had shown enough odd traits of his own to leave her suspicious of its intent. An actual _person_ who knew this strange place – and who didn't want to kill her – would be a world of hurt.

Of course, he or she could always try to brutally murder her, but that was a chance she had to take. She had few options.

"Let's go then," Sam told Scion. "Can you take us to…this person?"

"Certainly," Scion chirped. "Although I am not sure you will find what you are looking for."

"Wait," Lily spoke up. Sam turned to her as the blonde-haired girl held up a black object – a familiar rectangular prism, covered in small grated lines with a red button on the side. "What's this?"

Sam had seen this before – back when she and Firth had first found the entrance to this horrible place. "Hit the button on the side."

A familiar, heavily-accented voice spoke out from the prism, just like the prior time: "_I don't really get what Prometheus is trying, telling the docs to make the one big morgue of Lazarus a tootin' freezing chamber. 'Oh, McIlroy_,' _he tells me. 'We're doing it to preserve our genetic viability. What if we must need the genes to restart human civilization one day?' I gots a bad feeling about this kind of thing, y'know? Like Prometheus just wants to test this whole…cryostasis…thing out on dead bodies before he gets some grandiose ideas. He might be the big leader and down here with the surface blown to shit, but I got to watch things. Freezing dead bodies don't sound like a great idea to me in an underwater city."_

"McIlroy," Sam breathed. "He was the same one from last time."

"What?" Lily asked.

"There…there was another one of those up above," Sam explained. "When Firth and I had first found the sub and that place. The same man – McIlroy, I guess his name is – had spoken on that one, too."

Lily shrugged: "I guess."

_You sound crazy_, Sam thought. _Chasing dead people. Whoever that was hasn't been around for hundreds of years._

The doors leading deeper into the morgue opened up, revealing ice-lined walls of a crypt. Sam crossed her arms tightly over her chest, trying to trap what little heat she could as she and Lily followed Scion deeper into the morgue. Black, rectangular bulges lined the long hallway they stepped into on either side, making Sam feel cramped and enclosed in the tight space.

"What are these things?" Sam asked as they walked slowly along, her teeth nearly chattering from the cold.

"Coffins," Scion answered nonchalantly. "Each holds human remains."

"That's reassuring," Sam whispered sarcastically, putting an arm around Lily. "So why are these…Brotherhood people, I guess…so interested in whatever this Prometheus guy left behind if he's dead?"

Scion paused momentarily, something Sam hadn't yet seen him do. It was as if the spherical drone was searching for the appropriate answer, taking a moment before speaking with reservation: "These humans are zealous."

"That didn't really give an answer."

"We are close. Please, follow."

_He's hiding something_. Sam knew better than to open herself completely to the drone that led them around, but it was just too convenient that Scion had remained behind for hundreds of years when all its creators had died. What had happened down here – and had her guide been responsible for any of this?

It was a troubling notion. As Sam relied almost completely on this…_thing_ for directions about this place, she felt as if she were in untrustworthy hands.

The creepy, frozen crypt didn't make that feeling any better.

"I don't like this," Lily peeped, looking around cautiously at the myriad tombs on either side of the long hallway.

"We'll find a way out soon," Sam reassured her. "Don't worry."

Scion's interpretation of "close" conflicted greatly with Sam's. The drone led the two girls through two more of the long hallways, dragging them past dozens, maybe even hundreds of presumably filled coffins before reaching a raised control panel at the end of the third frigid hallway. Sam had felt as if she were about to pass out by this point – either from the sheer cold, or the feeling of dread she experienced walking by all the countless reminders of those who had died in this place. It pressed in on her as the halls stretched on, closing around her claustrophobically with each further row of coffins. She knew better than to imagine them opening up and spilling a corpse onto the ground…but she couldn't shake the feeling that these tombs hadn't been filled with a benign purpose. The entire Lazarus city reeked with an awful stench – and perhaps these were its tributes.

"Yes, this is the terminal," Scion extended his control arm, tapping a button on the raised computer console before retracing the limb into his spherical body. "It will be the third tomb on the left. I am not sure who the occupant will be, however…how exciting. I will remain vigilant, of course."

A single black coffin on the left extended out from the ice-white walls, itself covered in frost. A hole in the ceiling opened up, revealing a robotic arm that removed the coffin and placed it roughly on the ground. The steel arm loosened a latch on the side, clearing the final hurdle for the coffin's opening before pulling back into the ceiling.

"The cargo will be ready upon appropriate thawing," Scion remarked.

"How long is that supposed to take?" Sam asked, keeping her eyes on the black rectangular shape on the ground.

"Oh, perhaps thirty seconds."

Air spat out of the coffin as the lid slowly opened with a creak. Sam felt her gut sloshing around with nervousness. While she knew Scion would likely blast whatever came out of there, if someone within could help her find the control center of this sprawling underwater city – where she hoped she'd find the keys to stopping Nihlus – things would finally be looking up.

The coffin lid slowly pulled away, showering its contents with a cold, misty spray. Sam craned her neck for a glimpse, squinting her eyes as she tried to see what lay within the white-lined space. Something twitched within – a person, perhaps?

She hadn't expected _this_.

A thin man – a teenage boy, really – with loose, dirty blonde hair coughed and crawled out of the coffin, hacking upon the corrugated metal floor with all his force. Sam paused, frozen in place by this development – someone had frozen a _teenager_ in this crypt?

The boy looked up, meeting Sam's gaze with a pair of soft brown eyes. He looked over at Scion, with his cheeks instantly flushing of what little color they had.

Without further ado, the boy got to his feet and took off running – away from Sam and away from some unseen danger she didn't understand.


	13. New Faces and Frustrations

"Attempting to escape," Scion scoffed as the boy ran. "A futile ruse. Should I eliminate it?"

"No!" Sam yelled. "The other side's locked and the only other way out is behind us. C'mon – he's just scared. We all are."

"Hardly," Scion acquiesced.

"Lily, stay here with Scion," Sam told her companion. "I'll smooth things over. I don't want you to get hurt if he's wild or something."

_Of course, that means you'll be the one getting hurt,_ Sam thought. Ah well.

Without bothering to catch Lily's reaction, Sam sprinted off down the coffin-lined hallway after the boy. The running warded off the chilly environment, even if Sam's breath still steamed out of her mouth like a wispy ghost. The blur of a boy in front of her came to the final hallway's end after a minute of chase, screeching to a halt and slamming a cold fist onto frozen metal. Sam pulled up behind him, giving him space. She knew all too well from her time in District 10 what happened when a frightened animal was cornered.

"Wait!" Sam held her hands out and wide. "Wait – I'm not going to hurt you. I'm lost. I just want to ask you for help."

"Help?" the boy's voice was higher and softer than Sam had expected as he rounded on her, his eyes torn between confusion and an adrenaline rush. "Help? No one down here asks for help unless they're dead or trying to kill you! I don't believe you. _I don't believe you!_"

"I'm not like them!" Sam pleaded. "I'm not even from here. I'm…new."

Something flickered in the boy's eyes with Sam's words. He tilted his head to the side, pausing just a brief moment: "Bullshit."

"I'm from…the surface, not here," Sam didn't even know where to start. "My friends and I got stuck here. We're trying to get out…escape…but we don't know how. I woke you up because I need someone to help me. Please – please, I just want to go home, to get away from all this. That's all I'm asking from you."

"If you're from above," the boy hissed, his eyes turning dark. "Why's the Curator with you and that other girl?"

"The what?"

"The drone," he pointed ambiguously off from the direction they'd come, his words demanding an answer. "The Curator. Maybe it calls itself 'Scion' and added a Biblical quote to its name, but that thing's a killer. Why are you walking around with it?"

"I…" Sam hesitated, stumbling over words. Scion had helped her out of at least one sticky situation already – and clearly the drone had intimate knowledge of the station, even in its rambling way. Sure, it could kill – but it wasn't as if she was any more innocent of _that_ specific crime. "It's the only thing that's helped me so far. Please. I'm just trying to get away from all this. I'm not asking for anything else."

The boy looked Sam up and down, the cold blue-white lights of the crypt etching sharp shadows across his curved features. He wasn't much taller than her up close – certainly not the threatening sort, even if he oozed suspicion of her intent. But why was he so paranoid over Scion?

"Alright," the boy said. "You want my help? Here's the deal – you can even keep that drone around for now, although I'm warning you, it's going to end up killing you at some point. You want me, you're going to have to take me with you?"

"What?" Sam didn't understand.

"I've lived my whole life in this crumbling dump," the boy looked around the crypt with a toothy grin. "Never seen the sun. Never seen nothin' but people killing each other. I'd like that to change. You take me with you, you have a deal. Can't be any worse for me than whatever else is waiting, I guess."

_Well, it's not all that different with the killing thing up top…_ Sam though. Why spoil that, however?

"Deal," Sam agreed. "I'm Sam, by the way."

"David," the boy replied curtly, looking off into space down the long halls of the crypt. "Where are you trying to get to, anyway?"

"The – Scion, said we could release the controls that are holding up the submersible we came in somewhere in the center of this…city, I guess," Sam said vaguely. "So we could take it back out and leave."

David gave her an odd expression, his gray eyes lingering on her face –looking _past_ her face – for a moment: "If you say so."

"Um…what were…you doing in this morgue, anyway?" Sam got to the question she'd been meaning to ask as the two began walking back down the crypt's long halls again. "I mean – how old are you?"

"Sixteen," David grunted. "Wasn't exactly my choice. If you noticed, I'm not a raving, foaming-at-the-mouth lunatic like most people in Lazarus are. They tend not to like that."

"Why pick you out, then?"

"Oh, they didn't single me out," David laughed coldly. "Most people I lived with in a slum near the city center were also interned here. I guess they're all dead from power failure or something. I s'pose I should be thanking whatever idol the Brotherhood worships, huh?"

Sam didn't reply. The thought was horrible – being locked away in a coffin, condemned to a freezing death. David's fate was even worse: Being the only one of all those people to still be alive. No wonder he'd reacted with such hostility and fear upon first waking up.

David laughed upon being introduced to Lily – not a laugh of joy or happiness, but one of exhaustion: The kind of laughter that only came out because one had no other answer to give.

"Great," he sighed. "Three teenagers – you're not even a teen then, Lily, huh? – and this drone romping right into the middle of a den of murderous, xenophobic nuts. No weapons. This'll go well. How the hell did you all even end up here? Does whoever runs the surface now make a habit of sending kids to go explore?"

"We couldn't help it," Lily squeaked.

"Our hovercraft – er, something that flies in the air –"

"I know what an airplane is, Sam."

"Yeah…well, it crashed on an island, which led us here. We didn't really have much of a choice."

"Excellent," David slumped his shoulders. "I'm optimistic about this plan already."

"We can figure that out later," Sam pressed. "Do you know a way out of here?"

"In a tomb?" David laughed. "Are you kidding? I know the inner city fine, but I can't even tell you where at all we are right now. Ask the drone. Once we get to the fields, I can start finding my way around."

"The what?"

"It's where we grow food, make oxygen," he explained. "If the drone can get us that far, I can take over."

"Splendid!" Scion had listened in the whole time, fiddling with the door control via its extendable arm. "An underwater passage links the Medical Pavillion to the Ceres Fields block."

"Underwater?" Lily didn't sound thrilled by the prospect.

"Enclosed, of course," Scion quipped. "Humans are far too fragile for aquatic navigation."

"Really?" David said. "Why don't you take an 'aquatic navigation' of your own once we get to the fields?"

"How dramatic humans have become in the urban corridors," Scion sniffed. "I assure you, _sir_, I know these blocks to the column inch from my internal data-"

"Stop!" Sam shouted. "Stop! Fighting's just going to hurt us…and we need to leave. We need to get moving. Where does this underwater tunnel go?"

"To the Government Sector, of course," Scion turned to her, his row of lights flashing. "And the military barracks. I am afraid they are a total loss – completely vacant. Power died in the sector three days ago."

"Can you take us there?"

"Naturally."

"Then let's do it," Sam said.

At first glance, waking up a guide looked like exactly the _wrong_ thing to do. Sam had blissfully trusted Scion to lead the way earlier – now her newest companion had brought all sorts of questions regarding the drone to the forefront of her mind. Where did it really come from? And with the killing power she'd seen it use, did Scion have a dark side it was hiding? Of course, she couldn't just blindly trust David then, either – what agenda did he have against Scion? Was he being truthful…or concealing some painful secret?

Sam didn't want to deal with the questions. She already had to find Firth and the others, all while keeping Lily safe. Furthermore, she had her own secret – she wasn't just trying to get out, no; not until she discovered the truth about this _thing_ Nihlus had wanted so badly.

All these secrets would have to come bubbling up eventually. When they did…Sam could only hope their revealing wouldn't bring about more loss. This place had seen enough of that.


End file.
